Assessment of NASA's Mars Architecture 2007-2016 (2006) / Chapter Skim
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A SSE Decadal Survey Mars Priorities
A SSE Decadal Survey Mars Priorities
Pages 39-48
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Appendixes
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LARGE MISSIONS Mars Sample Return While MSR cannot replace certain crucial in situ measurements (e.g., heat flow, seismicity, electromagnetic sounding for water, analyses of labile samples, and determination of atmospheric dynamics) , it is scientifically compelling in its own right, and the ground-truth acquired from returned samples will aid the interpretation and greatly enhance the value of data from orbital and robotic lander missions.
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The constituent minerals, fluid inclusions, and alteration products can be studied chemically and isotopically, providing critical information on the age, dates of thermal and aqueous alteration events, nature of the source regions, and history of magmatic processes. In situ instrumentation will always be limited to a fraction of the potential measure ment suite and lower levels of precision and accuracy.
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Regardless of the ultimate design of the instrumentation, the SSE Survey recommends that while carrying out its science mission, the Mars Science Laboratory mission should test and validate technology required for sample return (e.g., sample handling and storage in preparation for sample return and feed-forward lander design, consistent with the future use of a Mars Ascent Vehicle)
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The SSE Survey strongly recommends that the Mars Exploration Program commit equally as strongly to the Scout program as to sample return. While Mars sample-return missions will be expensive and consuming of the attention of the MEP, there are sufficient resources in the program as currently structured to achieve both a viable Scout program and sample return.
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The SSE Survey encourages NASA to continue the integration of astrobiology science objectives with those of other space science disciplines. Astrobiological expertise should be called upon when identifying optimal mission strategies and design requirements for flight-qualified instruments that address key questions in astrobiology and planetary science.14 Astrobiology as a theme provides a scientific organizational structure that integrates a wide subset of solar system issues and questions that span the origins, evolution, and extinction of life.
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Support for future robotic and possible manned missions to Mars will require a long climatological baseline. The long baseline, partially obtained with ground-based and HST telescopic data, will also contribute to an understanding of the water cycles between the atmosphere, regolith, and polar caps, as well as spatially resolved data on volatile cycles of water, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and ozone.22 NASA currently provides support, in widely varying percentages, for planetary science operations at Arecibo, Goldstone, Keck, and the Infrared Telescope Facility, in collaboration with the National Science Foundation (NSF)
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New and increased science measurement capability in planetary science instruments and greater environmental tolerance will be required for less mass and power. Miniaturization is the key to the reduction of mass and power requirements.
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line rather than from the mission budgets.27 International Cooperation Some future endeavors are so vast in scope or so difficult (e.g., sample return from Mars) that no single nation acting alone may be willing to allocate all of the resources necessary to accomplish them, and the SSE Survey recommends that NASA encourage and continue to pursue cooperative programs with other nations.
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