Potential scientific objectives for a 2018 2-rover mission to Mars and implications for the landing site and landed operations

Details Potential scientific objectives for a 2018 2-rover mission to Mars and implications for the landing site and landed operations Potential scientific objectives for a 2018 2-rover mission to Mars and implications for the landing site and landed operations

Dec 2010

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2010agufm.p54a..01g&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2010, abstract #P54A-01

Biology

[5200] Planetary Sciences: Astrobiology, [5494] Planetary Sciences: Solid Surface Planets / Instruments And Techniques, [6225] Planetary Sciences: Solar System Objects / Mars, [6299] Planetary Sciences: Solar System Objects / General Or Miscellaneous

Scientific paper

A study sponsored by MEPAG has defined the possibilities for cooperative science using two rovers under consideration for launch to Mars in 2018 (ESA’s ExoMars, and a NASA-sourced rover concept for which we use the working name of MAX-C). The group considered collaborative science opportunities both without change to either proposed rover, as well as with some change allowed. Planning focused on analysis of shared and separate objectives, with concurrence on two high priority shared objectives that could form the basis of highly significant collaborative exploration activity. The first shared objective relates to sending the proposed rovers to a site interpreted to contain evidence of past environments with high habitability potential, and with high preservation potential for physical and chemical biosignatures where they would evaluate paleoenvironmental conditions, assess the potential for preservation of biotic and/or prebiotic signatures, and search for possible evidence of past life and prebiotic chemistry. The second shared objective relates to the collection, documentation, and suitable packaging of a set of samples by the rovers that would be sufficient to achieve the scientific objectives of a possible future sample return mission. Achieving cooperative science with the two proposed rovers implies certain compromises that might include less time available for pursuing each rover’s independent objectives, implementation of some hardware modifications, and the need to share a landing site that may not be optimized for either rover. Sharing a landing site has multiple implications, including accepting a common latitude restriction, accepting the geological attributes of the common landing site, and creation of a potential telecommunications bottleneck. Moreover, ensuring a safe landing with the sky crane and pallet system envisioned for the mission would likely result in landing terrain engineering requirements more constraining than those for MSL. Additional possible constraints on the distances the rovers could traverse suggest primary science targets should be within the landing ellipse. Hence, hazard avoidance capability might be necessary to allow for consideration of scientifically compelling sites with a mixture of safe and unsafe terrain.

Affiliated with

Also associated with

No associations

Rating

Potential scientific objectives for a 2018 2-rover mission to Mars and implications for the landing site and landed operations does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.

If you have personal experience with Potential scientific objectives for a 2018 2-rover mission to Mars and implications for the landing site and landed operations, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Potential scientific objectives for a 2018 2-rover mission to Mars and implications for the landing site and landed operations will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

Comments { 0 }

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-1499842