Mars Science Laboratory
Full Name: Mars Science Laboratory 2009
Phase: Development
Launch Date: October 22, 2011
Mission Project Home Page: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/future/msl.html
Program(s): Mars Exploration
Next NASA Mars Mission Rescheduled For 2011
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.
NASA is developing a 2011 Mars mission to set down a sophisticated, large, mobile laboratory using a precision landing that will make many of Mars' most intriguing regions viable destinations for the first time. Once on the ground, the Mars Science Laboratory would analyze dozens of samples scooped from the soil and cored from rocks as it explores with greater range than any previous Marsrover. As planned, the robotic laboratory will carry the most advanced payload of scientific gear ever used on Mars' surface, a payload more than 10 times as massive as those of earlier Mars rovers. Its mission: investigate the past or present potential of Mars to support microbial life.
The Mars Science Laboratory is planned to launch in 2011 and to arrive at Mars in 2012. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, builder of the Mars Science Laboratory, is engineering the rover to roll over obstacles up to 65 centimeters (25 inches) high and to travel up to about 200 meters (660 feet) per day on martian terrain.
The overarching science goal of the mission is to assess whether the landing area ever had or still has environmental conditions favorable to microbial life. The investigations to support that assessment include:
- Detecting and identifying any organic carbon compounds.
- Making an inventory of the key building blocks of life.
- Identifying features that may represent effects of biological processes.
- Examining rocks and soils at and near the surface to interpret the processes that formed and modified them.
- Assessing how Mars' atmosphere has changed over billions of years.
- Determining current distribution and cycles of water and carbon dioxide, whether frozen, liquid or gaseous.
This mission is part of the Mars Exploration Program.