[X] My Assistant

[RNeuhaus]

A new, low-cost mission concept to Mars would slam a projectile into the planet's surface in an attempt to look for subsurface water ice.

"I'm interested in exploring mid-latitude areas of Mars that look like they're made of snow and ice," Phil Christensen, the project's principal investigator, told SpaceDaily.com.

Christensen, of Arizona State University, and colleagues at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, are proposing a mission called THOR – for Tracing Habitability, Organics and Resources – as part of NASA's Mars Scout program.

Like last year's Deep Impact mission to comet Tempel 1, THOR aims to ram a projectile at high speed into the surface of Mars while a host spacecraft remains in orbit and observes the impact and its aftermath. If approved by NASA, the mission would launch in 2011.

That mission would be after MSL's mission. Now it is still a proposal It would cost around US$ 450 millions

More details: http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/THOR_Mar...ound_Water.html

Rodolfo

[djellison]

Martian penetrators I can understand, a couple of hundred MPH impact - but places without an atmosphere? How do you go about bring the thing to a sensible impact?

Doug