MTO Cancelled Options

[djellison]

Just listening to the MRO conference. Highlights included...

1) 5.4 Mbits is the highest MRO data rate (not the 4 I thought)
2) An extra 50-ish KG of fuel puts it's low-altitude orbit life thru to the next decade.
3) MTO HAS BEEN CANCELLED

What the HELL!

They say that MSL can still do its mission with just MRO as it's relay capacity will suffice.

But that means less science data during an MRO extension

Seems a bit short sighted.

Doug

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

I've finished reading MEPAG's recommendations as to the goals of the MSTO craft, and sure enough there is no mention anywhere of the goals considered so urgent by the "Mars Human Precursor" science steering group of MEPAG in its own report just last year: sirius.bu.edu/withers/ pppp/pdf/mhpssgaftpresentation.pdf .

The highest-priority goals achievable by an orbiter include measuring both high-altitude air-density fluctuations at 30-50 km, and lower-altitude winds and turbulence. This, to repeat, is extremely urgent for the immediate future -- both of these phenomena came close to wrecking MER-A, and larger and more expensive landers will be even more susceptible to the first one. We badly need to be able to monitor and predict them as much as possible. A somewhat lower-priority but still important goal for an orbiter is monitoring dust storms.

However, judging from the MHP report, it appears that the instruments already recommended for MSTO for purely scientific reasons will be adequate for such studies, if just one or two additions are made: a copy or improved version of MRO's infrared Mars Climate Sounder, and maybe a new instrument for measuring low-altitude winds. The MSTO paper seems confident that the millimeter-wave limb sounder recommended for MSTO can do a good job of measuring wind speeds all the way down to the surface. But the Science Steering Group for MRO, in its 2001 study, said that such a sounder could only measure winds above 40 km altitude, and the MHP study also says that a new instrument may need to be devised -- maybe Doppler lidar to measure the speed at which atmospheric dust is blowing. (I'm not sure if such an instrument is even under development for advanced Earth weather satellites.)

It seems likely that all larger Mars orbiters in the future will need to carry the instruments recommended by the MHP group, for constant monitoring of Mars' weather to allow last-minute revisions in the landing sequences (or even the targeting) of landers. (Upper-air density fluctuations could be monitored by an UV solar occultation instrument a lot simpler than the very high-resolution IR solar occultation spectrometer that MSTO will use to look for trace gases.)