The original "Exploration of Mars" topic became excessively long. As a result the topic has been split into individual, mission based, topics. The "Exploration of Mars" topic is now for news and discoveries not specific to any one mission.

Links to the other topics can be found below:

• Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter
  
• Mars Odyssey
  
• Mars Exploration Rovers
  
• Mars Express
  
• Mars Global Surveyor
  
• Mars Phoenix Lander
  
• Exploration of Mars

Waspie_Dwarf





The press release is reproduced below:

June 2, 2006

Bruce Buckingham
Kennedy Space Center, Fla.
321-861-7642

Katherine Trinidad
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-3749

CONTRACT RELEASE: C06-033

NASA Announces Mars Science Lab Mission Launch Contract

NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida has selected Lockheed Martin Commercial Launch Services Inc. to deliver an Atlas V rocket for the Mars Science Laboratory mission to carry a large rover to the red planet in the fall of 2009. The six-wheeled rover will explore Mars for two years, examining sites to identify where the building blocks for life may exist.

The total Mars Science Laboratory launch service price is $194.7 million. That cost includes NASA launch services and mission integration requirements. This is a firm-fixed price contract. The launch services for Mars Science Laboratory are being acquired under the existing NASA Launch Services multiple award procedures.

Principal work for the Atlas V Centaur propellant tank will be performed at Lockheed Martin's San Diego facility, while the primary work location for the Atlas V booster propellant tank's production will be done at Lockheed's facility in Waterton, Colo.

The Mars Science Laboratory will launch from Complex 41 on the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla. The mission is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., a division of the California Institute of Technology. JPL is responsible for spacecraft design and integration; integration of science instruments; spacecraft system testing; launch operations support and support of mission operations. For more information about the Mars Science Laboratory mission, visit:

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/future/msl.html

For information about NASA and agency programs, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/home

- end -

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Source: NASA Contract Release C06-033

This engineering model of Mars Science Laboratory was dubbed "Scarecrow" by the mobility team, because it is still without a brain like the famous scarecrow from "The Wizard of Oz."

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The 2009 Mars Science Laboratory, the mammoth grandchild of the 1997 Sojourner rover, is less than one year from the assembly, test and launch operations phase (ATLO). With its immense increase in size comes advanced abilities in power, technology and science data collection. In early 2008, the team will start the flight vehicle assembly and testing, simulating on earth every challenge the brave new traveler will face during the mission.

"We have moved from paper designs to real hardware and software," said Matt Wallace MSL Flight System Manager. "To name a few of the things that have happened lately: the first control and power electronics have been delivered to the testbed, our mobility and touchdown test vehicle is assembled and rolling, the initial versions of the software code for our guided precision landing are running and the landing engines were qualified for flight. MSL is a much more complex spacecraft than those we've sent before, so our assembly and testing is going to be really challenging."

Teams that represent every rover subsystem are working furiously to meet deadlines and overcome challenges to ensure that the most advanced rover to go to Mars will make its date with destiny.

Source: NASA/JPL - MSL - The Mission

On June 19, 2007, media visited JPL’s newly expanded outdoor Mars Yard where rovers train for future planetary missions. Visitors were treated to a test drive of the “Scarecrow” rover. Scarecrow might still be missing its computer “brains,” but it certainly showed off its monster appetite for large boulders, making easy work of traversing them. In early 2008, assembly of this hefty, hyper-capable rover will begin.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

Source: NASA/JPL - MSL - Multimedia

In early June 2007, the Mars Science Laboratory project completed its project-wide Critical Design Review (CDR), which marks the completion of the project's design phase and transition into the build up of flight hardware. A key component of the CDR process was a technical risk, programmatic, and cost review, from which multiple independent cost assessments predicted that this technically challenging $1.7B planetary science rover mission's current content would cause it to exceed its budgeted development costs to launch by approximately $75M.

Scheduled to launch in the fall of 2009, Mars Science Laboratory is the next step of NASA's Mars Exploration Program, a long-term effort of robotic exploration of the red planet. Mars Science Laboratory is a rover that will assess a variety of scientific objectives, including whether Mars ever was, or is still today, an environment able to support microbial life. The rover will carry the biggest, most advanced suite of instruments for scientific studies ever sent to the Martian surface. Dozens of samples of Mars soil and rocks as the rover makes its travels will be analyzed by MSL to detect chemical building blocks of life as well as what the Martian environment was like in the past.

Because the success of MSL is of course of high importance to NASA's Science Mission Directorate (SMD), SMD, working with the MSL Project and Mars Program at JPL, concluded that the MSL project required some focused and prudent reductions in scope in order to better ensure project success. Furthermore, because all of the funds MSL requested were not available in the Mars Exploration Program reserves pool, and because SMD did not want to impact other current or future science missions to fund these new costs, the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters has been working closely with the MSL project and the science community to identify mission scope reductions to minimize the project's need for funds, while minimizing both technical risk and impacts to the mission's science return.

As a result of this careful process, a combination of low-impact mission scope reductions and some new funding from the Mars Program's reserves pool, has been agreed upon. Together these measures effectively resolve the MSL cost increase issues identified at its CDR.

Engineering changes to the mission include some reductions in design complexity, reductions in planned spares, some simplifications of flight software, and some ground test program changes. These changes were selected largely to help reduce mission risks. Changes in mission science content were limited to removal of the Mars Descent Imager (MARDI), the MASTCAM zoom capability from the mission, and a change from a rock grinding tool to a rock brushing tool. As noted by the science input NASA received, most of MARDI's capability can be provided by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's HiRise camera now in orbit and working successfully. Furthermore, NASA has directed that the project expend no additional funds on ChemCam, and cost-cap SAM and CheMin at their current budgets. Future budget requests for these instruments cannot be funded. However none of the roving instruments were removed from the payload, and the science team also remains entirely intact.

"I am very pleased that we were able to resolve this challenge to the Mars Program without delaying or canceling any other mission in the Mars Program or other parts of SMD, and we avoided impacting Research and Analysis. We were also able to reduce some risks in MSL's development and flight." said Dr. Alan Stern, NASA's Associate Administrator for Science. "The MSL project, Mars Program, JPL and NASA HQ worked together to constrain the impacts to the Mars Program and keep MSL on schedule for its launch in 2009, and we all feel we succeeded." added Doug McCuistion, Mars Program Director.

Source: NASA/JPL - Mars Science Laboratory - The Missiom

Parachute Testing for Mars Science Laboratory

12.26.07

The team developing the landing system for NASA's Mars Science Laboratory tested the deployment of an early parachute design in mid-October 2007 inside the world's largest wind tunnel, at NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California.

In this image, an engineer is dwarfed by the parachute, which holds more air than a 280-square-meter (3,000-square-foot) house and is designed to survive loads in excess of 36,000 kilograms (80,000 pounds).

The parachute, built by Pioneer Aerospace, South Windsor, Connecticut, has 80 suspension lines, measures more than 50 meters (165 feet) in length, and opens to a diameter of nearly 17 meters (55 feet). It is the largest disk-gap-band parachute ever built and is shown here inflated in the test section with only about 3.8 meters (12.5 feet) of clearance to both the floor and ceiling.

The wind tunnel, which is 24 meters (80 feet) tall and 37 meters (120 feet) wide and big enough to house a Boeing 737, is part of the National Full-Scale Aerodynamics Complex, operated by the U.S. Air Force, Arnold Engineering Development Center.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, is building and testing the Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft for launch in 2009. The mission will land a roving analytical laboratory on the surface of Mars in 2010. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology.

Image credit: NASA/JPL/Pioneer Aerospace

› High resolution JPEG (2Mb)

Source: NASA - Missions - Mars - Images

Testing a Parachute for Mars in World's Largest Wind Tunnel

12.26.07

The team developing the landing system for NASA's Mars Science Laboratory tested the deployment of an early parachute design in mid-October 2007 inside the world's largest wind tunnel, at NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California.

In this image, two engineers are dwarfed by the parachute, which holds more air than a 280-square-meter (3,000-square-foot) house and is designed to survive loads in excess of 36,000 kilograms (80,000 pounds).

The parachute, built by Pioneer Aerospace, South Windsor, Connecticut, has 80 suspension lines, measures more than 50 meters (165 feet) in length, and opens to a diameter of nearly 17 meters (55 feet). It is the largest disk-gap-band parachute ever built and is shown here inflated in the test section with only about 3.8 meters (12.5 feet) of clearance to both the floor and ceiling.

The wind tunnel, which is 24 meters (80 feet) tall and 37 meters (120 feet) wide and big enough to house a Boeing 737, is part of the National Full-Scale Aerodynamics Complex, operated by the U.S. Air Force, Arnold Engineering Development Center.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, is building and testing the Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft for launch in 2009. The mission will land a roving analytical laboratory on the surface of Mars in 2010. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology.

Image credit: NASA/JPL/Pioneer Aerospace

› High resolution JPEG (2Mb)

Source: NASA - Missions - Mars - Images

No Speed Limit on Mars

04.04.08

It's a good thing there's no speed limit on Mars, because the next parachute to fly to the red planet will deploy faster than you can legally drive on a California freeway! The chute is designed to slow the Mars Science Laboratory as it rockets through the Martian atmosphere at more than twice the speed of sound and places a car-size rover on the surface. At its carefully selected landing area, the spacecraft's rover will use an advanced suite of instruments to assess whether the environment has ever been favorable for microbial life.


Image above: This image shows a perfectly
functioning parachute with the canopy fully open
at the opposite end of the wind tunnel after being
fired from the cannon.
Image credit: NASA
› Larger view
Related image: Two engineers inspect parachute
lines after a test › View

Engineers recently tested two parachute packing techniques in the world's largest wind tunnel at NASA's Ames Research Center. They loaded each chute into a cannon and aimed it down the middle of the tunnel. They then fired the cannon -- horizontally -- at 85 mph and let the parachute fly! Finally, they looked for damage to line attachments and other parts. All four tests were successful. They are now reviewing a veritable "jet stream" of high-speed video data to select a final parachute design for the mission, scheduled for launch in the fall of 2009.

More information about the mission can be found at _http://marsprogram.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/.

Written by Linda Doran
Media contact: Guy Webster
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-354-5011
guy.webster@jpl.nasa.gov

Source: NASA - Missions - MSL

April 21, 2008



The next set of "eyes" to journey to Mars are already busy observing people and objects on Earth. Keen vision will be essential to keeping the Mars Science Laboratory rover, a vehicle the size of a small SUV, out of trouble amid the red planet's cliffs, sand, and boulders. Using near-sighted and far-sighted cameras identical to the wildly successful and long-lived hazard avoidance and navigation cameras on NASA's Mars Exploration Rovers, the Mars Science Laboratory rover will avoid obstacles and often find its own way.

Of course, no space explorer ever takes flight hardware for granted! Engineers conduct regular eye exams just to make sure the cameras are ready to use their digital eyesight and computer smarts to guide the rover, and naturally, to take pictures and send panoramic postcards back home.

Image Credit:

NASA/JPL-Caltech

Higher Res Images:


Full Size Still Image


Full Size Still Image


Source: NASA/JPL - Mars Science Laboratory - Spotlight On Mars

May 12, 2008



Mars rovers appear to be shrinking with age! The biggest, baddest, newest rover being built is the Mars Science Laboratory rover (right). It's the size of a small sport-utility vehicle. Still exploring Mars four years after landing are the dune-buggy-sized rovers Spirit and Opportunity (left). The first-generation rover, Sojourner, is the size of a microwave oven.

Why are the rovers getting bigger? The answer is one word: science. The mass and volume of science instruments -- tools the rovers use to study the Martian surface and environment -- have remained fairly constant at about 10 percent. To determine if Mars ever could have supported life, the Mars Science Laboratory rover will travel farther, carry more instruments, and sample more rocks and soils than ever before. Like a car with more gizmos, the newest robotic beast has to evolve to carry all the gear!

Image Credit:

NASA/JPL-Caltech


Source: NASA/JPL - Mars Science Laboratory - Spotlight On Mars