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NASA Considers Landers For Mars Science Orbiter
Thu Apr 26, 12:02 AM ET --- NASA's Mars Exploration Program (MEP) is considering including small landers on the agency's Mars Science Orbiter (MSO) mission planned for 2013.
The landers are envisioned to be smaller than 100 kilograms. Payloads on these landers could include meteorological, climatic, or geophysical measurement instruments.
More details of the proposed MSO mission (1MB PDF) - March 2006
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Is there any more info on the type of landers to be included with MSO, or is this project just in it's study phase ?
'first steps are not for cheap, think about it...
did China build a great Wall in a day ?' ( Y L R newmars forum member )
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Report from the 2013 Mars Science Orbiter Second Science Analysis Group (PDF 3MB) - 29 May 2007
Latest detailed report, including a possible small lander package. The additional cost of $100m for the lander will make this hard to fund unless ESA contribute.
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It sounds like they're gearing the MSO for one of three senerios: plan A: Atmospheric Science; plan P: Polar Studies; plan G: Geological Science. Add to that the potential lander package...which of the 3 plans plan A favors a lander the least...largely due to competition with a radar sounder and various instruments.
If a lander's sent there sounds like there's huge interest in including a seismometer with it:
There was considerable discussion about how to best use the payload mass likely to be landed
as a drop-off package from MSO. This resulted in a clear prioritization
of the geophysics package instruments as follows: Seismometer, ranging for geodynamics,
heat flow experiment. [The case for the seismic measurements was further discussed above in
11.1.4.] Prioritization between this geophysics package and an integrated meteorological
package was more difficult. Comprehensive meteorological studies require data acquired from
multiple stations dispersed over a wide variety of terrains. However, given the lack of detailed
boundary layer measurements from anywhere on Mars, a single station would still provide a
key data set for validating atmospheric models and their treatment (or resolution) of critical
boundary layer phenomena. Such a station could also provide ground-level atmospheric truth
for remote sensing observations. The geophysics
package gained a preference in that it begins to fill an enormous gap in our knowledge about
Mars and its results are likely to have a more profound effect on a future landed network.
Apart from what little data can be squeezed from the orbiters, such as the discovery of a possible molten Martian core via analysis ofOdessey's orbit, the only way we could understand the Martian interior is sending some seismic equiptment. People seem to be highly in favor of "oh let's find the water" but without knowing much about the geothermal properties of either modern or ancient Mars (and considering the sun was actually dimmer a few billion years back) you're missing a huge part of the equation. I wonder if something Pathfinder-style with a few mini-probes could establish a network.
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Science Definition Report (PDF) - 15 Dec 2007
The SDT recommends the following three main science drivers for the MSO mission: 1) A new and comprehensive view of Atmospheric Composition to seek evidence for the present habitability of Mars; 2) A vastly improved characterization of the present Atmospheric State to provide new insight into processes that control the martian weather and climate; and 3) An in-depth study of Surface Change Science to better understand the crucial interactions at the surface-atmosphere interface. In addition to the above science objectives, NASA may choose to include a very high (sub-meter) spatial resolution imager necessary for landing site certification and the telecommunications equipment necessary for MSO to serve as a long-term (10 Earth years) asset for the relay of data from, and commands to, future landed spacecraft.
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It is sounding like they're going for plan A: Atmospheric Science out of those previous three. Slightly dissapointed they're not going for G: Geology but I did note an trade-off that would be worthwhile: they are placing emphacis on including a trade-gas instrument that'd help pin-out methane and/or volcanic emissions. That would definetely help verify if Olympus and Tharis, the supposed two youngest regions of volcanism, are active to any degree today.
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