If you’re already packed, there’s been a little delay. NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory will launch two years later than previously planned, in the fall of 2011. The mission will send a next-generation rover with unprecedented research tools to study the early environmental history of Mars. This picture is an artist’s concept portraying NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory, a future mobile robot for investigating Mars’ past or present ability to sustain microbial life.
The arm extending from the front of the rover is designed both to position some of the rover’s instruments onto selected rocks or soil targets and also to collect samples for analysis by other instruments. Near the base of the arm is a sample preparation and handling system designed to grind samples, such as rock cores or small pebbles, and distribute the material to analytical instruments.
The mast, rising to about 2.1 meters (6.9 feet) above ground level, supports two remote-sensing instruments: the Mast Camera for stereo color viewing of surrounding terrain and material collected by the arm, and the ChemCam for analyzing the types of atoms in material that laser pulses have vaporized from rocks or soil targets up to about 9 meters (30 feet) away. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
October 2009 was no longer feasible as a launch date because of testing and hardware challenges that must be addressed to ensure mission success. The relative positions of Earth and Mars are favorable for flights to Mars only a few weeks every two years. The next launch opportunity after 2009 is in 2011.
The advanced rover is one of the most technologically challenging interplanetary missions ever designed. It will use new technologies to adjust its flight while descending through the Martian atmosphere, and to set the rover on the surface by lowering it on a tether from a hovering descent stage. Advanced research instruments make up a science payload 10 times the mass of instruments on NASA’s Spirit and Opportunity Mars rovers. The Mars Science Laboratory is engineered to drive longer distances over rougher terrain than previous rovers. It will employ a new surface propulsion system. Rigorous testing of components and systems is essential to develop such a complex mission and prepare it for launch. Tests during the middle phases of development resulted in decisions to re-engineer key parts of the spacecraft.
“We will not lessen our standards for testing the mission’s complex flight systems, so we are choosing the more responsible option of changing the launch date,” said
“Despite exhaustive work in multiple shifts by a dedicated team, the progress in recent weeks has not come fast enough on solving technical challenges and pulling hardware together,” said Charles Elachi, director of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. “The right and smart course now for a successful mission is to launch in 2011.”
“Costs and schedules are taken very seriously on any science mission,” said Ed Weiler, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters. “However, when it’s all said and done, the passing grade is mission success.”
The mission will explore a Mars site where images taken by NASA’s orbiting spacecraft indicate there were wet conditions in the past. Four candidate landing sites are under consideration. The rover will check for evidence of whether ancient Mars environments had conditions favorable for supporting microbial life and preserving evidence of that life if it existed there.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages the Mars Science Laboratory project for the Science Mission Directorate.
