Tim Furniss/LONDON
NASA is to launch a new Rover mission to Mars in 2003, with the possibility that a second mission may also be flown at the same time, budgets permitting. The Rover 2003 mission is to cost between $350-400 million and will be launched aboard a Boeing Delta II on 4 June, 2003.The second mission would cost an additional $175-200 million.
The first Rover is scheduled to land on 20 January, 2004, using an inflatable balloons concept which cushioned the impact onboard the earlier Mars Pathfinder mission. Surface operations are expected to last 90 days, with the potential for a longer operating period. The Rover will be a "robotic field geologist" with the ability to "sniff for water", says Scott Hubbard, NASA Mars programme director.
The second mission would replicate the first Rover launch, although the spacecraft would be dispatched to a different location.
The 136kg (300lb) Rover will be based on the design of the smaller Sojourner rover, which arrived on the planet in 1997 with the Mars Pathfinder. The difference will be in the range, where the new vehicle will be able to cover 100m, compared with just 10m for the older version. It will be equipped with a suite of six instruments, including a colour camera and a detector to search for evidence of water.
NASA is expected to select a location where there are indications that water may have existed on the surface, such as a potential dry lakebed or channel. The vehicle will be equipped with an imaging spectrometer, allowing it to look inside rocks, and a microscopic imaging capability.
The Rover 2003 will be built by Cornell University and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Despite the loss of the Mars Climate Orbiter and Mars Polar lander spacecraft last year, activity surrounding the planet remains high. The Mars Global Surveyor is already in orbit and Lockheed Martin's Mars Surveyor orbiter will be launched in 2001, carrying three primary instruments: a gamma ray spectrometer, thermal emission imager and radiation monitor. The European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter is to be launched in 2003 - along with the UK's Beagle 2 lander - and a Japanese orbiter, Nozomi. With orbital coverage high, NASA felt it could concentrate on the Rover mission. But the decision has threatened the planned 2004 Pluto-Kuiper Express mission, with cancellation due to budget constraints. Pluto is the only planet in the solar system not to have been explored by spacecraft.
Source: Flight International
