NASA Selects MSSS to Provide Science Camera for Mars 2020 Rover Mission
http://www.msss.com/news/index.php?id=121

Is this a different organizational structure than the MSL MastCams? (Prime vs sub-contracting for MSSS?) Was MSSS part of more than one proposal?

Generally the main contract is with the PI's home institution, and hardware development is subcontracted. If the PI is at the same institution as the hardware developer there only has to be one contract. We've done it both ways historically.

Are you asking if we were part of other proposals that lost, or other proposals that won? I can't answer either question, but in the abstract the former is usually never disclosed, and the latter would presumably become public at some point.

There's some information about SHERLOC in http://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/georaman2014/pdf/5101.pdf

Interesting post about the instrument fit-out on the Planetary Society blog, looks like I might get to see a Mars Sample Return in my lifetime.



Mars 2020 Instruments – A Plan for Sample Return

What this will be able to do will be to survey a large number of different materials for composition, mineralogy and signs of organics. It will be a good fit for a complex site with a large diversity of targets like Gale Crater. It will be able to check a lot more targets for organics than will ever be possible with Curiosity. The Raman technique should also be insensitive to perchlorates, which is a huge plus.

Late reply at Don1: Yes SHERLOC will be included and it is a good instrument that will be able to get around the measurement methods used on MSL/Curiosity where we cannot be certain if the chlorobutane and chlorobenzene is actually or if they were baked together by the rover from perchlorates and other organics, (yes I am frustrated that we cannot even learn what organics that have been encountered. Like sending someone on fieldwork who do not know what an indicator species is and why it is important in any study.)
The righthand-lefthand organic and direct DNA search experiments that was in the pipeline for MSL but removed in the wild revamp to get the rover finished do not appear to be included or considered this time.

My understanding is that the 2020 instruments will be better at detecting the presence of organics than MSL, but without a mass spectrometer the rover will not be able to do detailed characterization of the organic composition. If samples are eventually returned, then that identification can be done with exquisite detail in Earth laboratories. If the samples aren't returned, then we will be left wondering what the organics are.

By using lasers, the 2020 instruments avoid the perchlorate-organic-destruction trap that comes from heating samples. There were instruments proposed that combined lasers with mass spectrometers, but they would have required the space effectively reserved for the atmospheric oxygen extraction experiment and they might have busted the instrument budget.

Yes SHERLOC is one heck of a good instrument, but not when used as a stand alone unit.
When it has been stated that organics is one priority for this mission I do indeed get a bit frustrated in reading up on what the capabilities will be of the rover.

Instruments is built by universities so there's no direct cost there, but you might mean the budget for integrating and or the power budget? To which I have to agree.
Even so I really feel something is lacking in the instrument package, I would have liked to see a mass spectrometer and some method to determine if the molecules is chiral or achiral could tell us a great deal about if they ever been part in any 'L' system at some point in the distant past or perhaps even is not of Martian origin at all but have been transported to the planet by meteorites.

But yes, SHERLOC could be used to find good samples stored for retrieval later, the problem is that a sample return mission is not even in any proposed budget what I know of.

Instruments built by universities cost NASA as much (or more) as those built by industry.

For NASA missions, NASA fully pays for the instruments. For ESA missions, the sponsoring nation pays, but it's still government dollars.

Yes I am european, and so had the ESA way of doing things in mind when I wrote that - so I stand somewhat corrected.

Happy new year BTW. =)

A compelling reason for shifting the gears on the proposed sample return mission might have turned up since unusual sedimentary structures have been spotted.

A space.com interview with the science team (and let's just leave their response as the end of any more discussion!):

http://www.space.com/28218-mars-rover-curi...signs-life.html

Since it seems to be in neither link above, here is a link to the Astrobiology paper "Ancient Sedimentary Structures..." by Nora Noffke

Is the whole 24-page article based purely on images? I couldn't find any mention of evidence from the other instruments, though admittedly that was a skim.

[MOD]....and, in accordance with rule 1.3, let's REALLY leave it at that, guys.