Mathematics – Logic
Scientific paper
Dec 2006
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006agufm.p31b0140g&link_type=abstract
American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2006, abstract #P31B-0140
Mathematics
Logic
5400 Planetary Sciences: Solid Surface Planets, 5415 Erosion And Weathering, 5464 Remote Sensing, 5470 Surface Materials And Properties, 5499 General Or Miscellaneous
Scientific paper
Landing site selection for the 2009 Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) is underway and includes a series of open workshops for soliciting science community input regarding the landing site. The first workshop was held in Spring 2006 and focused on prioritizing 33 proposed sites for imaging by orbital spacecraft. It should be noted that the number of potential landing sites is high because MSL entry, descent, and landing (EDL) capabilities enable a small landing error circle (20 km in diameter), high landing site altitude (below 1 km, MOLA datum), and wide latitudes (plus/minus 45 degrees). The primary scientific goal of MSL is to assess the present and past habitability of environments accessed by the mission. In particular, MSL will assess the biological potential of the landing site, characterize the geology and geochemistry at appropriate spatial scales, investigate planetary processes that influence habitability, including the role of water, and characterize the broad spectrum of surface radiation. The geological, chemical, and/or biological evidence for habitability should be expected to be preserved for, accessible to and interpretable by the MSL investigations at the landing site. Because landing safely is paramount, all engineering constraints for the mission must be adhered to for a proposed site to be viewed favorably. For example, areas with potentially high winds will need to be compared with landing system tolerance during development. Slopes across length scales of 2 to 5 km, 20 meters, and 5 meters must be less than 3 degrees, 15 degrees, and 15 degrees, respectively. Rocks at the landing site should be less than 0.6 m high and in intermediate to lower abundance terrains. The landing surface must be load-bearing, radar reflective, trafficable and not be dominated by dust. Persistent cold surface temperatures and CO2 frost will negatively impact performance and areas with very low thermal inertia and very high albedo are excluded. Finally planetary protection requirements limit the MSL landing site to areas not known to have extant water or water-ice within one meter of the surface. Many of the sites proposed at the first workshop may comply with these science and engineering constraints and ongoing imaging at a variety of spatial and spectral resolutions will enable more rigorous assessment of their relative merits. In addition, the mission engineering constraints will continue to be refined during MSL design and development of the spacecraft. A second open workshop is planned for Fall 2007 and will emphasize evaluation of acquired image data, discuss any new sites revealed by orbital assets (e.g., Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter), and pare the list under consideration to a smaller number of primary and back-up sites subject to additional evaluation. An overview of the MSL mission is available at http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/overview. More information on the MSL landing site selection activities and process and proposed landing sites can be viewed at http://marsoweb.nas.nasa.gov/landingsites/and http://webgis.wr.usgs.gov/.
Golombek Matthew P.
Grant Alex J.
Mars Landing Site Steering Committee
Vasavada Ashwin R.
Watkins Michael M.
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