Mission Planned to Bring Martian Rocks to Earth
In what will be the first “biopsies” taken of Mars, scientists will attempt to collect rocks from the Red Planet and bring them back to Earth as early as 2011, the agency said Thursday.
The sample-return mission, which could cost up to $2 billion, is part of an ambitious exploration plan of six JPL missions in the next decade to image, poke and prod the planet to an unprecedented degree. In addition to understanding the planet’s climate, atmosphere and geology, scientists hope to answer key questions of whether life ever arose on Mars and if it still exists there.
The plans include “smart landers” that could execute precision landings and might pack up to 600 pounds of scientific equipment, including a drill to probe for water beneath the surface. Orbiters would send back images detailed enough to reveal rocks the size of beach balls. In addition, “scout” instruments, possibly remotely operated planes or drifting balloons, could survey the canyons and atmosphere of Mars.
The revamped plans for Mars come after six months of brainstorming, number crunching and soul searching at NASA following the loss of two major missions to Mars last year.
Ed Weiler, NASA’s space science chief, said he was confident that the management problems and unrealistically low budgets that derailed earlier missions are being corrected. NASA currently spends about $450 million per year on Mars.
NASA officials said they will also leave more time--four years--between major lander missions to allow engineers to respond to problems, changes in technology or scientific surprises.
NASA plans to use reconnaissance from the first missions to help decide where best to pluck rocks that might contain evidence of water or life to be brought to Earth--a move planetary scientists call prudent.
“Although there’s no uninteresting place on Mars, some places are more interesting than others,” said Dan Britt, a University of Tennessee geologist who has researched Mars for a decade. Detailed reconnaissance, he said, could also help future missions avoid big rocks he dubbed “rover and lander killers.”
Plans to explore Mars were energized three months ago by intriguing pictures taken by the Mars Obiter Camera showing what appear to be gullies recently carved by water. Leading thinking on Mars suggests that deep canyons and valleys on the planet were also carved by water--a prerequisite for life--in the planet’s warmer and wetter past.
That idea was challenged this week at the planetary meeting by Conway Leovy, an atmospheric scientist and Mars expert from the University of Washington. Leovy suggests that the features may have been carved by wind-driven sand and that water might not have played a role. Still, Leovy said Thursday he liked what he heard of NASA’s new plans, even though they “follow the water.”
“The water question is really the key question, however it comes out,” Leovy said.
NASA scientists are hoping to bring a 2- to 4-pound Mars rock back to Earth for detailed analysis and to detect any signs of current or former microbial life.
The cost of the missions remains to be calculated, and Thursday’s announcement was short on technical details. But the missions are sure to contain many technical challenges, among them the ability to land something precisely on Mars and avoid obstacles, said Firouz Naderi, who manages the Mars program for JPL.
By searching for safe landing sites and water that might one day be used for drinking, the missions also set the stage for a manned mission to Mars. But NASA scientists Thursday refused to speculate on when such a mission might occur.
