MSL schedule delay? |
MSL schedule delay? |
Sep 9 2008, 08:10 PM
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#1
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Member Group: Members Posts: 706 Joined: 22-April 05 Member No.: 351 |
The most recent Aviation Week and Space Technology (9/8) has the following tidbit in a piece on NASA schedule delays:
"On the robotoic front, the testing schedule for a critical instrument for the Mars Science Laboratory -- dubbed SAM for Sample Analysis at Mars -- may delay launch of the advanced rover from its 2009 planetary window into 2011." -------------------- |
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Oct 4 2008, 01:25 PM
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#2
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Member Group: Members Posts: 706 Joined: 22-April 05 Member No.: 351 |
I agree with Doug that simply buying more MERs instead of MSL would not have been a wise choice. MER's landing technology severely limited landing sites and the next key questions are not about water but about carbon. MER's instruments are unsuited to that latter question.
What the MSL budget problems do highlight, however, are the inherent problems of technology development. NASA's key missions do push technology, in part because NASA is an engineering R&D organization and in part because the next level of questions in so many areas require new engineering capabilities. Unfortunately, NASA's Mars program is not budgeted for this kind of effort. (And this really brings into question the affordability of Mars Sample Return, but that is for another forum.) I expect that MSL will fly at the expense of either the MAVEN scout mission or a 2016 mission. After that, NASA will be faced with a hard choice of continuing to do missions that push the engineering envelope (which probably means doing missions infrequently if the budget remains the same) or doing missions that reuse technology. The astrobiology lander/rover that has been discussed in previous roadmaps or Mars sample return would be examples of the former. The proposed Mars Science Orbiter, is an example of the latter. A series of rover missions based on the proposed 2016 mission concept would be a mixture of the two. The initial rover would reuse much of the design knowledge of the previous rover missions (e.g., the skycrane landing system) but also would require new engineering to fit as much capability into a smaller, cheaper rover. Subsequent missions, however, would reuse that design heritage. -------------------- |
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