First 2009 MSL Landing Site Workshop Options

[CosmicRocker]

I received this in email today. I haven't even begun to digest it all yet, but it really gives one a sense of the many complexities that must be considered by those who would compete in a game like this. It's kind of long, but I thought some of you would like to see it.

It's also kind of exciting to get a glimpse of the things planned for MSL. Now, I better appreciate some of the stuff the various space mission teams had to consider before they were selected for the end game. This is interesting stuff...

Oh, and just in case anyone thinks I am one of the "colleages" it was addressed to, I'm not. I just managed to land in some address list.

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FIRST ANNOUNCEMENT FIRST ANNOUNCEMENT
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FIRST LANDING SITE WORKSHOP FOR THE
2009 MARS SCIENCE LABORATORY
May 31st-June 2, 2006
Pasadena, CA

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FIRST ANNOUNCEMENT FIRST ANNOUNCEMENT
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Dear Colleagues:

You are invited to participate in the First Landing Site Workshop for the 2009 Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) rover mission to Mars. The workshop will be held May 31 through June 2, 2006, in Pasadena, California.

AN OVERVIEW OF WORKSHOP OBJECTIVES:

The purpose of the Landing Site workshop is to identify and evaluate potential landing sites best suited to achieving stated mission science objectives within the constraints imposed by engineering requirements, planetary protection requirements, and the necessity of ensuring a safe landing. A NASA-appointed Landing Site Steering Committee and the Mars Science Laboratory Project will use the results of the workshop as the basis for narrowing the list of potential landing sites under consideration. Community consensus with respect to high priority sites will also be solicited. In addition, the workshop will provide a means for identifying potential landing sites as targets for imaging by the MGS, Odyssey, MRO, and perhaps other orbital assets. Note: the number of potential landing sites is high because MSL entry, descent, and landing capabilities enable a small landing error ellipse (20 km diameter), high landing site altitude (<2 km), and wide latitudes (±60°).

MISSION SCIENCE OBJECTIVES:

The primary scientific goal of the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) is to assess the present and past habitability of the martian environments accessed by the mission. Habitability is defined as the potential of an environment to support life, as we know it. Such assessments require integration of a wide variety of chemical, physical, and geological observations. In particular, MSL will assess the biological potential of the regions accessed, characterize their geology and geochemistry at all appropriate spatial scales, investigate planetary processes that influence habitability, including the role of water, and characterize the broad spectrum of surface radiation. To enable these investigations, MSL will carry a diverse payload capable of making environmental measurements, remotely sensing the landscape around the rover, performing in situ analyses of rocks and soils, and acquiring, processing, and ingesting samples of rocks and soils into onboard laboratory instruments. A candidate landing site should contain evidence suggestive of a past or present habitable environment. To the extent that it can be determined with existing data, the geological, chemical, and/or biological evidence for habitability should be expected to be preserved for, accessible to, and interpretable by the MSL investigations.

An overview of the MSL mission can viewed at http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/overview. A summary of NASA's Mars exploration strategy is at http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mep/mslides/index.html and additional information can be viewed at http://mepag.jpl.nasa.gov/reports/index.html. Web tools for visualizing and analyzing relevant Mars data as well as an archive of previously proposed and selected landing sites are available at http://marsoweb.nas.nasa.gov/landingsites/and http://webgis.wr.usgs.gov/, which also includes a web based GIS interface for relevant Mars data. Web sites for MSL landing site selection activities are http://marsoweb.nas.nasa.gov/landingsites/ and the USGS PIGWAD site http://webgis.wr.usgs.gov/msl, where workshop announcements, program, and abstracts can be accessed along with more detailed descriptions of the MSL mission, science objectives and investigations, and instruments.

PLANETARY PROTECTION CONSIDERATIONS:

The MSL project has been assigned to Category IVc by NASA's Planetary Protection Office with constraints on the landing site and regions accessed from it. Specifically, MSL is limited to landing sites not known to have extant water or water-ice within one meter of the surface. Later access to "special regions" defined in NPR 8020.12C (regions where terrestrial organisms are likely to propagate, or interpreted to have a high potential for the existence of extant martian life forms) is permitted only in the vertical direction through use of sterilized sampling hardware. The above are general guidelines for site selection; compliance of specific landing sites and nearby regions will be determined through discussions with the Planetary Protection Office during the site selection process.

MISSION ENGINEERING CONSTRAINTS:

Because the ability to ensure a successful landing for MSL is paramount, consideration of landing sites must include comprehensive assessment of limitations imposed by mission engineering constraints. Although these constraints continue to be established and refined, a description of preliminary values related to allowable locations, elevation, and surface properties follows.

The entry, descent and landing scenario employed by the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) flight system places engineering constraints on what would be considered a safe landing site of high scientific interest. The dominant considerations in landing site placement are latitude, elevation and the landing ellipse size. The MSL flight system is capable of landing in a circle of 20 km diameter, within which everywhere must be safe for landing and roving. This circle can be placed anywhere on Mars that is below +2 km MOLA elevation and within 60° latitude of the equator (60°N to 60°S). Steady state horizontal and vertical winds and wind gusts are a concern during descent and landing, so areas with potentially high winds will need to be compared with landing system tolerance during development. The landing system uses a radar altimeter, so the entire landing site must be radar reflective. Slopes at long and intermediate (2-5 km and 20 m) wavelength could negatively impact the altimeter, requiring slopes over 2-5 km length scales <3° and slopes over 20 m length scales <15°. Short wavelength slopes affect landing stability and trafficability, requiring slopes over 5 m length scales <15°. Rocks higher than 0.6 m are a problem for landing, requiring areas with intermediate or lower rock abundance. The landing surface must be load bearing and trafficable and so must not be dominated by dust. Persistent cold surface temperatures and CO2 frost will negatively impact performance. These latter three considerations will likely eliminate areas with very low thermal inertia and very high albedo. Surface characteristics (short wavelength slope, rocks and dust) of a trafficable surface are similar to those required for safe landing, except the small landing ellipse and long traverse capability allow the possibility of considering "go to" sites. These sites have a safe landing site adjacent to the target of science interest and require traversing outside of the landing ellipse to sample the materials of highest interest. In this case, the area that must be traversed to get into the region of highest science interest (required to accomplish the science objectives of the mission) must be trafficable from anywhere within the ellipse. All of the values for the parameters discussed will be refined during continuing design and development of the spacecraft, with updates posted on the web site, as will a more detailed discussion of these constraints. We expect the first posting around February 1, 2006 at http://marsoweb.nas.nasa.gov/landingsites/ and the USGS PIGWAD site: http://webgis.wr.usgs.gov/msl

All persons planning to participate in the workshop should review the science, engineering, and planetary protection constraints carefully, as only those landing sites that meet these constraints will be accepted for presentation at the workshop.

HOW TO PARTICIPATE:

All members of the scientific community are encouraged to participate in this important activity. Persons wishing to make a presentation at the workshop are urged to carefully review the science objectives and engineering and planetary protection constraints at http://marsoweb.nas.nasa.gov/landingsites/ and at the USGS PIGWAD web site noted above.

Most of the workshop will be devoted to submitted papers describing: (1) the overall types of sites for MSL based on associated scientific and programmatic rationale and suitability for safe landing and roving; and (2) individual landing sites on Mars and their scientific merit and safety. Individuals must prepare an abstract (no longer than one page using standard LPSC abstract format) summarizing their proposed topic or site. Talks advocating an individual site must summarize the science merits and demonstrate that the proposed location satisfies the mission science, planetary protection, and engineering requirements. A clear statement of the rationale for continued consideration as a possible landing site should also be included. A program will be prepared from the submitted abstracts and will be posted along with logistical information in late April, 2006.

Abstracts (no longer than one page using standard LPSC abstract format) are due by March 28, 2006, and should be submitted electronically via http://marsoweb.nas.nasa.gov/landingsites/. Detailed instructions on abstract format and submission will also be posted at this web site in February, 2006.

LOGISTICS FOR THE WORKSHOP:

The workshop will be held in the vicinity of JPL in Pasadena, CA, and there will not be a registration fee. In order to get a sense of the number of people likely to attend the workshop, interested individuals should indicate their intent to attend via http://marsoweb.nas.nasa.gov/landingsites/ by April 1st, 2006. Although we anticipate mostly oral presentations, there may also be poster sessions. Additional logistical information about the workshop will be distributed to the community in subsequent announcements and will be posted at: http://marsoweb.nas.nasa.gov/landingsites/ and http://webgis.wr.usgs.gov/msl Input from the science community is critical to identification of optimal landing sites for the MSL. We look forward to your involvement in these activities!

Regards,

John Grant Matt Golombek
Co-Chairs, Mars Landing Site Steering Committee

[The Messenger]

If we really wanted to know if there are viruses on Mars, we would have Bill Gate's design the software.

[Stephen]

That's correct. But if the rover's goal is 100m per day, that's plenty of time to "stop and think" every 2-3m. Using a lot of RAM should help too. MRO has 20 Gb of memory, so I guess it shouldn't be a problem.

Well...yes. But how much of that 20 GB will actually be available in practice?

Data is stored in a 160 Gbit (20 GB) flash memory module consisting of over 700 memory chips, each with 256 Mbit capacities. This memory capacity is not actually that large, considering how much data is going to be acquired; for example, a single image from HiRISE camera can be as big as 28 Gbit [3.5 GB].

--http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Reconnai...ctronic_systems

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Stephen

[djellison]

And - that storage is the slower non-volatile type. It's not 'Ram'.

If you want to process a lot of images for navigation purposes, you need plenty of ram with which to do it.

Strangely, I've never seen any reference to Hazcam's for MSL - I'm assuming they'll be installed front and rear- but will they be MER heritage, or fish-eye'd versions of the Mastcam electronics?

Either way - I think with improvements in software, we can get better at this than we are now. Compare current driving to, say, the drive to Bonneville crater - AND - we are due another MER software update in the not too distant future.

Doug

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

Here's yet another personal estimate from me as to some of the particular interesting abstracts at this workshop. (Proceed at your own risk.)

http://marsoweb.nas.nasa.gov/landingsites/...SL_workshop.pdf : Nice summary of the general scientiic criteria for picking landing sites -- including the varying potentials of different types of rocks and minerals for preserving ancient fossil evidence.

http://marsoweb.nas.nasa.gov/landingsites/...SL_workshop.pdf : A related piece concluding, from analysis of Earth minerals, that sulfates actually do a much better job of preserving fossil organic compounds than hematite does. This is important -- and it may be related to Dawn Sumner's argument that what's likely to destroy fossil organics in an environment like Meridiani is the dissolved ferric iron in the water, more than the sulfuric acid: http://repositories.cdlib.org/cgi/viewcont...text=postprints

http://marsoweb.nas.nasa.gov/landingsites/...SL_workshop.pdf : The OMEGA team repeats its case for choosing one of the small areas of exposed Noachian phyllosilicates as the best possible places to look for fossil biological evidence. I still find this convincing.

http://marsoweb.nas.nasa.gov/landingsites/...SL_workshop.pdf : A proposal that MSL might land on the floor of a large crater with gullies on the walls and roll up to inspect the bottoms of the gullies. "In the Wirtz Crater in particular...there are well developed gullies with at least one impact crater on a gully apron deposit suggesting sufficient antiquity to satisfy possible constraints on investigations due to planetary protection requirements (i.e. there might be no threat that the gully with the impact crater can become active in modern times)." Maybe.

http://marsoweb.nas.nasa.gov/landingsites/...SL_workshop.pdf : Proposal to land in Arabia Terra, a very interesting region which is not only very rich in layered rocks that seem to be highly hydrated, but which may be one of Mars' main sources of methane.

http://marsoweb.nas.nasa.gov/landingsites/...SL_workshop.pdf : Proposal to land in Athabasca Valles, which -- on top of its other interesting attributes -- is showing some slight evidence of hydrated minerals in OMEGA's maps ( http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2006/pdf/1477.pdf ).

http://marsoweb.nas.nasa.gov/landingsites/...SL_workshop.pdf : Proposal to land in Nili Fossae, a site extremely rich in Noachian phyllosilicates nd just plain intereting all the way around. I suspect this will end up as one of the frontrunners.

http://marsoweb.nas.nasa.gov/landingsites/...SL_workshop.pdf : Proposal to land in Aram Chaos, a hematite site that may be more interesting (and acid-free) than Meridiani. (But see the cautions above about looking for fossil evidence in hematite deposits.)

[edstrick]

"...Proposal to land in Arabia Terra..."

I would be extremely negative on that for the MSL mission, though I would extremely strongly support it for one of a netlander type mission station.

Viking IRTM InfraRed Therml Mapper data showed that non-polar Mars is divided into essentially two types of areas: Low thermal inertia and Intermediate to High thermal inertia. Much of Arabia is a moderately high to high albedo reddish terrain consisting almost entirely of low inertia surfaces. Very few features within Arabia (such as isolated dark "splotches" in a few craters) have intermediate or high inertia. Much of Tharsis, including the 4 great shield volcanoes are in low inertia terrain, as is much of eastern Amazonis.

A low inertia areas' surface is essentially entirely covered to a depth of at least a few centimeters with uncemented dust with a probable mechanical consistancy of cement powder. They heat up very rapidly during the day and cool off very fast at night. Intermediate inertia surfaces have thermal properties of fine sand or somewhat cemented dust, while relatively rare high to very high inertia surfaces have thermal properties of coarse sand or well cemented, probably mechanically hard material. Viking, Pathfinder, and MER all landed in intermediate to moderately high inertia terrain.

Thermal inertia is primarily measured by sampling the diurnal heating cycle. An afternoon and a predawn measurement are enough for a decent estimate, though daytime surface albedo measurements help a lot to put absolute values on the numbers. Really accurate numbers require the entire day/night heating/cooling curve, not accessible to polar orbiting sun-synchronous orbiters.

Viking could also detect "brightness temperature" differences between the short wavelength thermal channels and the long wavelength one. Large cobbles and rocks cool off slower than fine sand or dust at night, and the surface -- if you could see it in infrared color -- would be studded with glowing "bluish" hot-rocks on a dully glowing "reddish" cold backgrouind. Signal-to-noise on the data was soso, and the rock abundance maps were crude, but matched the Viking landing sites well. MGS TES data have supplanted the Viking data in resolution and SNR, and the rock abuncance estimates match pathfinder and MER decently.

What does this mean? ..... Arabia and the low inertia regions in general have near-zero calculated rock abundance. They're buried or mantled with dust. This dust is *NOT* the last few years's dust storm dust. It does have weak geographic thermal and matching albedo variations, while areas of recently deposited dust in Viking images (pre-vs-post 1977 storm images) are uniform in areas where they appear thick and nearly continuous .... till wind starts eroding the fresh fallout. Instead, it's probably some dust mantle deposited during some recent climatic cycle and not eroded. Arabia seems to be heavily mantled with dust in MOC and THEMIS images, but this is not necessarily the same unit, since the low inertia deposits that control color and albedo in the low inertia regions are sensed to a maxium depth of a very few centimeters, and mantling maps do not seem to precisely match low inertia region boundaries.

Either way, in most any area in Arabia and any low inertia region, geologic exposure of material "of interest" to MSL will be atrocious at best and non-existant at worst. Like the entirely dusted high-albedo regions on the floor of Gusev (that Spirit most fortuitiously missed!) only far worse.

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

Except that there seem to be a lot of areas in Arabia where there are very extensive displays of layered sedimentary rock -- and, given the small size of MSL's landing ellipse, the odds of its actually hitting one of them is vastly better than for past landers.

[edstrick]

The thermal data indicate that much of the rock is very poorly exposed. A meter to centimeters of caked-on dust or dust mantle would be utterly invisible in current imaging except indirectly, as color/albedo/thermal patterns, which is what seems to be the case.

here *are* exposures of higher inertia within Arabia, for example dark splotches with intermediate albedo margins on the floor of Henry crater lie on the crater bottom to either side of the *BIG* layered sedimentary pile in the middle of the crater, but these are rare and limited.

The layered sedimentary rock in the crater itself seemed in the Viking data to have the same inertia as typical Arabia material.

Full resolution HiRISE images and hyperspectral composition maps across the transitions between dark splotches, intermediate albedo / intermediate inertia reddish borders and the higher albedo / low inertia materials of Arabia will shed a lot of light on the problem.

I'd really love to put a netlander type payload down in absolutely representative Arabia terrain and give us some ground truth on these important regions, but that's not going to happen any time soon

[ustrax]

From Space.com:

Grant said that the current site constraints are very broad and allow consideration of sites at a range of elevations and latitudes not considered by Spirit and Opportunity Mars rover planners, for example.
...
Some scientists here are backing the Holden Crater region. Others suggest that Gale Crater is a feature likely to rise to the top of the must do list. Many point to a "no brainer" of an exploration hot spot—the huge canyon landscape of Valles Marineris.

"Valles Marineris looks good now … but remember the cold feet that the engineers got about this with Spirit and Opportunity. I wouldn’t be surprised if Valles Marineris eventually falls out of favor for engineering reasons," predicted one Mars researcher taking part in the workshop.



http://space.com/news/060531_msl_destination.html

[RNeuhaus]

Wrong place for the topic. Removed the post.

Rodolfo