NASA announces new Mars rover mission

NASA is sending another robot to Mars.

The space agency announced a new mission Tuesday afternoon that will launch another rover at the Red Planet in 2020.

Curiosity, their latest 1-ton rover, just begun a two-year mission in August. NASA announced the InSight mission a few months ago, which will explore the planet’s core in 2016. The new $1.5-billion mission would bring the total number of current or planned missions on Mars to seven.

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said in a statement that the new mission ensures that the United States “remains the world leader” in Mars exploration.

The Obama administration has plans to send humans to Mars in the 2030s.

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank) said in a statement that he plans to push Congress and NASA to launch the new rover sooner than 2020. “While a 2020 launch would be favorable due to the alignment of Earth and Mars, a launch in 2018 would be even more advantageous as it would allow for an even greater payload to be launched to Mars.”

While Curiosity carries an advanced science lab to analyze soil and zap rocks, Schiff said an upgraded rover is the “logical next step.”

[UPDATE: 5 p.m.] At a Tuesday afternoon press conference at American Geophysical Union’s 2012 conference in San Francisco, NASA Associate Administrator for Science John Grunsfeld said launching a rover by 2020 is already an “aggressive schedule.”

“It might be possible to do it in 2018, but it will be a push,” he said.

Grunsfeld also said the launch date allows scientists to pick out better landing sites for the new rover, which will be built using some of Curiosity’s spare parts. “We’ll be able to target more interesting places than Gale Crater.”

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-- Tiffany Kelly, Times Community News

Follow Tiffany Kelly on Google+ or on Twitter: @LATiffanyKelly.