CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- The launch of the next Martian rover is nine months away and counting. Astrobiologists, atmospheric scientists and geologists already are rehearsing their parts.
Many Mars explorers attended a 10-day summer camp last month to prepare them for working on the Red Planet.
Three spacecraft head to Mars next year. A common element of all three missions is the search for water, which would indicate Mars could support life. Scientists through the ages have wondered whether anything ever lived on Mars or ever could.
In May, the first of NASA's Mars Exploration Rovers is scheduled to launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. A month later, a twin rover will follow.
If successful, the missions will be the first to land safely on the surface since the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's 1997 triumph, Pathfinder.
"Pathfinder was a technology demonstration mission," said John Callas, science manager for the Mars Exploration Rover mission. "The MER mission is very much a scientifically driven mission."
For the field test, a test rover was placed at an undisclosed location in the arid Southwest and scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., had to send commands to the robot to find out more about the Mars-like region.
For some, it was the first time they were thrown into a room making fast decisions on a mock mission. Next year, when they have to make those choices for real, any one of them could affect the outcome of a $740 million mission. The Mars Exploration Rovers will be different than the traditional method of mission planning where everything is mapped out in advance, Callas said.
"We need a science team that is very flexible and very nimble, able to make high-quality decisions in a short amount of time," Callas said.
Geologists who are used to going to a site with their rock hammer and seeing and feeling their specimens will have to get used to letting a robot do that for them.
But a lot has to be done before that can happen.
"It's the most fast-paced flight project I've ever been associated with," said Steve Squyres, the mission's chief scientist who also worked on the 2001 Mars Odyssey spacecraft.
For one, the actual rovers aren't finished yet.
Scientists are doing their tests with a rover called FIDO, short for Field Integrated Design Operations testbed.
Then the new rovers must undergo a battery of safety tests.
One will include dropping a backup bot out of a helicopter to test the airbags that will cushion the blow of landing on the surface.
In March, they will be packed and shipped to Cape Canaveral for their launches.
The Mars-orbiting Odyssey and Global Surveyor probes still are collecting pictures and data about the four proposed landing sites. The final two sites will be selected in March.
"The longer we wait, the smarter we'll be," Squyres said.
Through this pair of rovers, McLennan will study where sediments on Mars came from. Sedimentary rocks are essentially igneous, or volcano-formed, rocks that the environment has altered. By studying specific types of rocks and dust, he hopes to find out how they changed. Perhaps it was by climate or even by water.
"I'm sort of vaguely agnostic about landing sites," said Scott McLennan, a professor at State University of New York, Stony Brook. All would suit his needs.
Their mission: hunt for signs of water. NASA's thinking is where there is water, there could be life.
To make things a little harder, scientists will live and work on Martian time. One Martian day is 24 hours, 39 minutes.
"That 39 minutes makes life really complicated," Squyres said.
So say their daily operations meeting is at noon one day. The next day it would be at 12:39 p.m.
"Three weeks from now it's in middle of the night."
Operating two rovers at once will present its own set of challenges. For example, if they pick landing sites that are 12 time zones apart, it will be hard for scientists to hop from one rover team to another. They will be required to take a few days off to catch up on lost sleep.
Like NASA, the European Space Agency and Italian Space Agency are tracking down the wet stuff.
The agencies will send off their own mission to Mars next June called Mars Express. This spacecraft will join the small armada of probes orbiting the planet and hunting for water. NASA already has 2001 Mars Odyssey and Mars Global Surveyor flying around the planet. Express also will send a lander to the surface. NASA is helping to design Express's radar system.
People can send their name to Mars on the NASA rovers for free. Those interested can sign up at http://spacekids.hq.nasa.gov.
So far, 2.7 million people have submitted their names. NASA will save all of the names on a small DVD that will ride along with the rovers through their Martian adventures.
This has become sort of a tradition for Mars missions. Many names were supposed to fly to Mars on a CD-ROM on the Mars Polar Lander, but that spacecraft was destroyed on its descent to the Red Planet. And NASA also collected names for its 2001 lander, but that program was cancelled. Those names were transferred to next year's project.
Published under license from FLORIDA TODAY. Copyright © 2002 FLORIDA TODAY. No portion of this material may be reproduced in any way without the written consent of FLORIDA TODAY.
advertisement
