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LAPIS originated as an educational program designed to involve high school students in testing the Mars Sample Return prototype rover, FIDO. Lapis is a blue stone first mined in Afghanistan in 4000 BC and believed to give good judgement. FIDO's purpose is to simulate the surface operations necessary to find, characterize, and return samples to the lander. In LAPIS 2, student teams will plan and implement their own mission during the May 2000 field test. Students will have a chance to work closely with rover scientists and engineers, and communicate with each other via the Internet and teleconferences. The end result will be the production of a CD-ROM containing data from the student test mission. |