In Brief:

Enlistees sought for mission to Mars

(CNN) -- Now you can take a trip to the red planet, if in name only. NASA is giving space enthusiasts a chance to send their personal appellation on a spacecraft slated to blast off for Mars in 2003.

Almost two million have already signed up for the Internet program. Those participating can print out a nifty commemorative certificate and look up their name in the database.

The names will be written into a compact disk enclosed in one of two rovers that should reach Mars in December 2003 or January 2004. NASA hopes to add at least another one million names.

So if you want to be there, sort of, when one of the robots stumbles over an exotic form of martian life, be sure to join the name brigade. Best of all it's free. The Web site is http://spacekids.hq.nasa.gov/2003.

Solar moviemaker warms up for launch

(CNN) -- A NASA spacecraft designed to make movies of solar flares could lift off as early as next Thursday, should mission controllers deem its Pegasus rocket fit to fly, NASA said this week.

One such booster is suspected of dooming the test flight earlier this month of an experimental X-43 NASA space plane.

The High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager (HESSI) was to launch June 7 but NASA postponed the $85 million mission until investigators complete a probe into the cause of the X-43 mishap.

Engineers want to determine if there is a connection between the X-43 failure and the rocket that will ride with HESSI from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

HESSI was set to launch last July but suffered damage during testing in March. The satellite is equipped with an imaging spectrometer that can create X-ray and gamma ray movies of solar flares, which can disrupt communications and equipment on Earth.

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