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It seems to me, with the success of Spirit and Opportunity and the falling costs of launch vehicles it makes sense to use the MER envelop to send a fleet of low cost rovers.
If given the chance, universities, clubs, organizations and individuals could think of a million different things they would like to see and test on Mars. With the advance of DIY hacking and off the shelve availability since the MER launch, it wouldn’t surprise me to see even well off hacker spaces putting together functional Mars rovers. While there is lots of logistical issue to be worked out, the biggest issue, survivability, is already answered.
The plan would be to release common hardware parts; drive train, power plant, and communication but tailor the mission to individual interests. The parts would be upgraded to now standards (more efficient solar panels and computers, better cameras) but keep the same shape and profile so they would all fit in a standard launch configuration. Universities already build world-class solar and SAE cars, why not have a Mars Rover competition?
With the number of rovers increased, the missions could become more specialized. The same mission can be sent to several locations to see the differences in the planet and we could send to more dangerous locations.
Thoughts?
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I think this post was before its time...but is worth a bump as it is more relevant today
Space-X is a private company that bids, the space agency like NASA or ESA can dip into budgets and award Space-X contracts or launches. ATK Thiokol is considered the old government linked but they make good product new Orbital Systems produces the Cygnus spacecraft.
Space-X makes Cars but does not make Space-Rovers ...yet
The largest budget space agencies are NASA (United States), CNSA (China) ESA (Europe) CNES (France) JAXA (Japan) Roscosmos (Russia) the smaller ISRO (India) and smaller budget of ASI (Italy)
$74 million, India's moon mission was less than half the cost of Russia's south-pole lander ($200 million)
NASA's budget in the 2023 fiscal year is $25.4 billion US compared to ISRO's less than $1.5 billion.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/india-lun … -1.6946142
Indians already saw their space program, which has orbited the moon and Mars, as a point of pride even before the historic soft landing near the moon's rugged and unexplored south pole, where it's much more difficult to land than closer to the equator.
While this mission was run by the country's public space program, the big money in space exploration is in the private space sector, and investments are expected to pour in after Chandrayaan-3's success.
a private mission ESA and Firefly
Firefly to take Lunar Pathfinder to the Moon
https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration … o_the_Moon
Firefly's mission will see Lunar Pathfinder delivered to lunar orbit via their Blue Ghost vehicle while the Blue Ghost lander will continue to the Moon's far side and deploy a communications user terminal and radio telescope experiment to the lunar surface.
Perhaps linked to Commercial Lunar Mission Support Services (CLMSS), Lunar Mission Support Services (LMSS) is a collaboration between Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL) and the European Space Agency (ESA) to develop lunar telecommunications and Commercial Lunar Payload Services, a NASA project to send small payloads to the Moon.
Last edited by Mars_B4_Moon (2023-09-05 12:51:40)
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