[X] My Assistant

[djellison]

http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2008/dec/H...MSL_Update.html

From the wording of this announcement, MSL is clearly still on, which is a good thing. We'll have to wait and see.

Doug

[Guest_Enceladus75_*]

It's somewhat disappointing to see that MSL has been delayed to a 2011 launch, but the upside is that there will be more time for testing of critical elements like the actuators which are critical and the all important skycrane which is a brand new technology.

It is better in my opinion for MSL to have a delay and a flawless flight/landing/surface operations than a rushed job resulting perhaps in at best a faulty rover that can't do good science on Mars and at worst a failed landing attempt and the consequences of that disaster. Beagle 2 and Mars Polar Lander paid the price of corner cutting and a big rush to launch.

That said, Emily's question regarding the riskiness of relying on MRO to support data downlink from MSL is very important. Might there now be a need to launch a dedicated Mars telecoms orbiter to support the surface missions , a plan that was scrapped a while back?

[mcaplinger]

Might there now be a need to launch a dedicated Mars telecoms orbiter to support the surface missions...

Need or not, there's no money for such a thing.

I guess if Odyssey and MRO (and MEx?, not sure about the politics there) have failed by the time MSL lands, then MSL will be DTE-only.

Would they launch MSL if all the orbital assets were failed at the time of launch? I have no idea.