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.

[Explorer1]

Helicopter confirmed for the payload: https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/mars-hel...t-rover-mission
Looks like deployment will be from the belly of the rover body. Just release, and then drive off to a safe distance?

Obviously some benefits to the Dragonfly Titan proposal in terms of getting experience with autonomous rotor-driven spacecraft, (thought liftoff on Titan would be a lot easier!) but also just plain cool! Selfies will be a lot easier to plan too...

[mcaplinger]

Obviously some benefits to the Dragonfly Titan proposal in terms of getting experience with autonomous rotor-driven spacecraft...

I think you overestimate the level of cooperation and information flow between JPL and APL, even if the two vehicles had much in common other than having rotors.

[Explorer1]

That's true, and obviously there are many differences; one has to use its rotors for EDL in addition to the prime mission, carry scientific instruments, all after a multi-year cruise, while the other is a tech demonstration piggy-backing on another mission, and its own success or failure does not impact the 2020 Rover's objectives.
I was just thinking in terms of "space is space". Whether half an hour signal delay or several hours, neither will be controlled in real time by anything but an onboard computer, with really thin margins on mass and power. JAXA and NASA have cooperated on their respective asteroid sample return missions, (which are coincidentally flying at the same time), and there are some rather large differences between them. But anyway, this is mostly academic for now; looking forward to the Mars microphone picking up the whirr of the blades (3000 RPM!)

[Steve G]

Please tell me they're fitting a camera on the helicopter.

[Explorer1]

Please tell me they're fitting a camera on the helicopter.

Yes, this is the main point of the demonstration; being able to scout terrain ahead, with higher resolution than orbital imagery, both for engineering (planning safe drive routes) and science (spotting things too small for HiRise or not in line-of-sight to the rover).
Being able to inspect the entire rover is an obvious plus, (if they are permitted to fly close enough to avoid being a hazard)*, though I'm sure many EDL team members would like to see how their hardware fared too! With Curiosity pretty much everything fell into local low points in the terrain, and we never saw the heatshield, backshell, parachute, or skycrane from the ground. Mind, the current plan is for only 30 days of operations, it's not apparently planned to 'tag along' for the main mission.

Edit: *a bit tongue in cheek Mike! The forward facing camera would be plenty adequate for a distance view!

[mcaplinger]

Being able to inspect the entire rover is an obvious plus, (if they are permitted to fly close enough to avoid being a hazard)

No freakin' way.

[monty python]

I just fell on the floor laughing!!!

[anticitizen2]

JPL was concerned enough about the helicopter interface potentially taking down the rover that they gave that design to the Lockheed Martin Space avionics team. Our best engineer is working it, so I’ve been looking over his shoulder at the design.
I assumed there would be no moving parts in the deployment, but apparently the helicopter is held sideways against the belly, and then rotated 90 deg to vertical for deployment. I guess that makes sense on more consideration, this thing isn’t going to be THAT small, but I still don’t have a sense of scale between the two vehicles, how much clearance the stowed helicopter is going to get.

[Explorer1]

The new upgraded skycrane landing system should be able to avoid any unlucky rock sticking up, from what I recall?

[mcaplinger]

The new upgraded skycrane landing system should be able to avoid any unlucky rock sticking up, from what I recall?

There's no active hazard avoidance that I'm aware of. There's TRN but that still requires a priori knowledge of hazards from pre-existing orbital imagery. See https://marsnext.jpl.nasa.gov/workshops/201...straints_v6.pdf

[PDP8E]

Here is a nice technical write-up of the Mars Helicopter

https://rotorcraft.arc.nasa.gov/Publication...AA2018_0023.pdf

Two Cameras!

[nprev]

Helicopter test in simulated Mars surface atmosphere at JPL.

That's very impressive, esp. considering that they can't simulate 0.38g.

[Phil Stooke]

Voting at the landing site workshop just concluded. Looks like Jezero crater and Midway are preferred (either one can have an extended mission to the other). NE Syrtis a close second, but Columbia Hills is out.

Phil

[atomoid]

There's a nicely detailed rendering of a Jezero-Midway traverse map in this recent Discover article.
Its unclear the reasons behind the potential path options shown, perhaps they are mostly engineering and timeline considerations, as other paths could turn out to be more productive scientifically, i'm personally hoping the landing would be in Jezero (to which i'm assuming the yellow circles do not delineate any landing constraint but simply highlight the areas of interest), then onward through to the Midway region and whats sure to be a laundry list of sites beyond.

I'm still mesmerized by that parachute test every time i see it.

[Adam Hurcewicz]

I made a flight over 3 landing sites to Mars Rover 2020.

I use MRO/CTX b.w. images then add a color from Mars Expres HRSC camera and made model from DT4 (same orbit like color image).

Now I'm work from MRO/HiRISE more detailed images to Jezero and Midway sites.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=yINcv96Tgb4