Nasa announces new rover mission to Mars in 2020 Options

[Mongo]

NASA plans Mars rover remake for 2020

NASA today announced a $1.5 billion plan to build another Mars rover based on the design of its current Curiosity rover, with the intention of sending it to the Red Planet in 2020 and perhaps storing up samples for later return to Earth.

The move comes less than a year after the space agency said it couldn't afford to contribute $1.4 billion to the European-led Exomars missions, and it seems likely to stir new debate within the planetary science community. Hoped-for missions to other interplanetary destinations, such as the Jovian moon Europa, could conceivably be impacted further by the revised plans for Mars exploration.

John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for science at NASA Headquarters, insisted that the budget could handle the new commitment. "This mission concept fits within the current and projected Mars exploration budget, builds on the exciting discoveries of Curiosity, and takes advantage of a favorable launch opportunity," he said in a NASA news release.

He said the future rover would be built on the same basic design used for the Curiosity rover, which landed on Mars in August, and thus capitalize on the design work that was done during Curiosity's development for its $2.5 billion Mars Science Laboratory mission. Like Curiosity, the new rover would be nuclear-powered, thanks to a spare radioisotope thermoelectric generator, Grunsfeld said.

Grunsfeld announced the plan during a town-hall session at the American Geophysical Union's fall meeting in San Francisco. Based on Twitter updates from the meeting, reaction was deeply mixed. "NASA town meeting audience is very quiet," Lindy Elkins-Tanton of the Carnegie Institution of Washington tweeted. "I think we are all in shock."

Projected budget cuts have cast a pall of uncertainty over future plans for interplanetary probes, but the idea of bringing samples back from Mars for study on Earth is on top of planetary scientists' priority list for the next decade. Grunsfeld told his AGU audience that the rover could have the capability to gather and store samples for later return, depending on how its science mission is defined.

NASA said a science definition team would be selected to outline the mission's objectives, and that the selection of science and instruments for the mission would then be openly competed. The mission would also help lay the groundwork for eventual human exploration of Mars, the agency said.

"The Obama administration is committed to a robust Mars exploration program," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said in today's statement. "With this next mission, we're ensuring America remains the world leader in the exploration of the Red Planet, while taking another significant step toward sending humans there in the 2030s."

Two rovers are currently in operation on Mars — Curiosity and Opportunity. Meanwhile, three working spacecraft are orbiting the Red Planet: the European Space Agency's Mars Express as well as NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Mars Odyssey orbiter. Next year, NASA is due to launch the $500 million MAVEN orbiter to study Mars' upper atmosphere. In 2016, NASA plans to send a $425 million lander called InSight to delve into Mars' depths.

NASA also plans to participate in the European Space Agency's Exomars program by contributing radios for an orbiter and lander due for launch in 2016, as well as scientific apparatus for a 2018 rover. But the space agency had to trim back its commitment to Exomars early this year, in large part due to the need to cover cost overruns on the James Webb Space Telescope. The Russian Space Agency is filling the gap left by NASA's pullback.

U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., who has been critical of past cutbacks in NASA's planetary science program, applauded the plan announced today.

"In its few short months on Mars, Curiosity has broadened our understanding of our planetary neighbor, and the findings announced thus far point to even greater discoveries as Curiosity continues to explore Gale Crater and Mount Sharp," Schiff said in a written statement. "An upgraded rover with additional instrumentation and capabilities is a logical next step that builds upon now-proven landing and surface operations systems."

However, Schiff said he favored launching the rover in 2018 — when the alignment of Earth and Mars is more favorable, permitting the launch of a heavier payload. "I will be working with NASA, the White House and my colleagues in Congress to see whether advancing the launch date is possible, and what it would entail," he said.

[djellison]

To be honest, I think Curiosity's system is doing so well ( and requiring so little heating ) that they probably will not ( and ought not to ) bother.

[dvandorn]

Since there was more hydrazine left in the descent stage tanks on Curiosity than expected, is it possible that the 2020 rover could be upgraded somewhat in weight? Or do the other EDL phases constrain the total mass for this landing system such that we'll need to end up with a rover pretty much the same weight as Curiosity?

-the other Doug

[Explorer1]

If the EDL can be modified to avoid kicking up so much dust and debris, that would be good news as well (for the REMS team at least!).

[mcaplinger]

If the EDL can be modified to avoid kicking up so much dust and debris, that would be good news as well (for the REMS team at least!).

The instruments will be recompeted and while it would be nice if the landing environment were more benign, I expect that proposed instruments will be expected to prove their robustness to landing debris.

[stevesliva]

Since there was more hydrazine left in the descent stage tanks on Curiosity than expected, is it possible that the 2020 rover could be upgraded somewhat in weight?

Gale's low elevation provided some margin there, right?

[djellison]

Correct - although I think margin could be found elsewhere as well - The requirement was to be able to land 1000kg - which the system could easily have handled.

[Explorer1]

Scott Anderson's portable geochronometer would be a nice payload option, finally giving absolute dates for samples.
This article details it, but doesn't mention how heavy the finished instrument will be, other than 'light enough' for deep space.

http://www.nature.com/news/planetary-scien...machine-1.11049

[PaulM]

Of interest to this forum: Science News journalist Alex Witze just tweeted: "I asked Cameron if he would fly his zoom camera (taken off MSL at last minute) on the new MSL. A: Yes I'll start pushing right away."

I would like Cameron's camera to be flown on insight mission although I realise that there would be a considerable cost involved in integrating the camera and processing the data. However, the camera would do a great job of filming dust devils.

[Phil Stooke]

No, the imaging part of that mission will be brief, and it and will use copies of MER Hazcam and Navcam. The design is basically done, don't expect any changes. If you want a fancy new camera you have to wait for the new rover.

Phil

[Mars Attack]

What would really excite me is including on the 2020 rover the most up to date and sophisticated life detection instruments available or under development. Viking provided inconclusive evidence of possible life thirty some years ago. Since then we have learned much more about Mars and we will learn even more in the coming years. John G.mentioned that the new rover could land in places that even MSL couldn't have, opening up the most likely places to detect life. He also said that there are new life detection instruments that are being considered for the 2018 lander from Europe and Russia that could be used. I can't think of anything more exciting for the world then to have a rover looking for life and possible finding hard, conclusive evidence of it. You just never know until you actually try!

[mcaplinger]

The design is basically done, don't expect any changes.

If they haven't had their Critical Design Review yet, then the design is not "done". I don't think they've even had PDR.

There's no technical or schedule reason we couldn't have better imaging on InSight. As to cost, how much is it worth?

[elakdawalla]

If they are to stick to the $1.5B number I think they will have to stay very close to the MSL blueprint in terms of EDL, mobility system, etc. Instruments are, at least according to NASA's public statement, wide open. There was a Q and A about instruments at the announcement. Someone pointed out that congressman Schiff had issued a release pushing for a 2018 launch date; Grunsfeld replied that instruments couldn't be ready by 2018 and that 2020 would be a tight schedule.

It would be cool to get to take advantage of the guided entry capability to go to some place that was totally inaccessible to previous landers. Gale was pretty benign as far as the entry phase goes, because of its low elevation.

[Drkskywxlt]

Also, to be responsive to the Decadal Survey, this rover MUST cache samples. If it doesn't cache, then the Decadal was clear that this type of mission is lower priority relative to Europa, etc...

[vjkane]

I think that the key unknown for MSL-2020 is the instrument budget. The march of technology since the instrument selection for MSL-2012 allows some new of instruments such as geochronology dating instruments and contact instruments that can measure composition at the scale of individual grains. However, developing flight versions, I suspect, may be expensive. I also suspect that creating a flight ready version of a sample cache system may require substantial investment.

As I recall the $1.5B estimate for the caching rover included only next-generation contact instruments and the cache sample system. That might mean that the budget for new internal instruments may be limited.

One option may be to update Curiosity's instruments and also to refly some of the ExoMars rover instruments. I'd like to see MSL-2020 carry a copy of the ExoMars deep drill.

[elakdawalla]

On a visit to Honeybee Robotics last year I saw a pretty sweet sample acquisition and caching system. They had a coring drill with a really neat design that had a window they could use to inspect the sample before it was stored; their cache had a goodly number of slots for cores and soil samples.