The internet project, called Mars Micromission, would send a series of small probes weighing under 500 pounds (220 kilograms) to the Red Planet to comprise a satellite constellation that effectively would make Earth just a cell phone call away. The probes would be about a third as large as Polar Lander.
The Mars Internet, also called Mars Network, would allow landers, science orbiters, rovers -- even balloons -- to shoot back bucket-loads of data around-the-clock, rather than the tendrils that might have dribbled back to Earth had Polar Lander succeeded. It also could help set up what would amount to a Global Positioning Satellite system for Mars.
Where is Polar Lander? Where is Climate Orbiter? If either could so much as beep -- even in the wrong direction -- the Mars Network could have pinpointed their cries for help, were it in place.
This week, Polar Lander flight engineers were hampered by their inability to easily communicate with the spacecraft. Moreover, tight funding and a shortage of real estate on the lander meant it carried no on-board gear to advise controllers as to its health en route to Mars' southern pole.
"We can be far more effective if we can communicate and navigate around Mars 24 hours a day, all the time," Elachi said. "We can track spacecraft entering Mars' atmosphere, all the way down to the surface. So I think we'll be looking at the Mars Internet, moving that somewhat earlier [in schedule], relative to landing and bringing samples back to Earth," Elachi said.
Idea predates Mars Climate Orbiter loss
The idea for the Mars Network came up "long before" the September 23 loss of Mars Climate Orbiter, said David Lehman, the project manager for the Mars Micromission.
"The idea is safety for our assets at Mars at a relatively low cost to support other NASA missions," Lehman said.
The mission also could amount to a rescue for a recently axed darling of the agency -- the Mars Airplane. That mission was to mark the first time a winged vehicle flew on another planetary body, but NASA scrapped the project -- managed by NASA Langley Research Center -- in November because its price rose too high.
Now NASA says a later Micromission launch could carry the probe, which could unfurl for a cruise through the Vallis Marineris, a martian canyon 2,400 miles long and more than five miles deep, as early as 2005.
Partnership with French space agency
For Micromission, NASA has teamed up with the French space agency, Centre National D'Etudes Spatiales (CNES), which has promised a free ride aboard an Ariane 5 rocket in exchange for oversight of the science experiments aboard the probes. Some of the probes could fly to the surface of Mars rather than orbit in the telecommunications constellation.
NASA would pay for the spacecraft, contracting the work out to Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corp. in Boulder, Colorado. Each would cost under $200 million, Lehman said.
The loss of an orbiter at Mars in September has left NASA with a sole spacecraft in place around the planet to assist other missions with communications. This has handicapped the agency's ongoing Mars Exploration Program and its effort to learn Mars' water history and look into the prospects for life there.
NASA has tried, to no avail, to use that sole spacecraft, Mars Global Surveyor, to search for blips from Polar Lander and its piggyback microprobes, now missing in action since Friday just as they reached Mars.
The first Micromission spacecraft is expected to launch in spring 2003, but it all depends on whether NASA commits to funding the mission overall. The decision should come in February 2000. Earlier plans for the Mars Internet had its first launch coming in 2004.
Ball will design and manufacture the propulsion system and provide support services during the building and launch of the Micromission.
Success with the Mars Micromission could bring the opportunity for more Micromission spacecraft contracts for Ball and industry partner, Aerojet.
The project has been studied for about two years, with Lehman coming on board seven months ago. The idea is to come up with one basic design that could work for all future Micromission probes -- be they for science or communications.
But the first launch now is planned as a communications system.
Later launches could involve two Micromission probes at a time, with a goal of reaching up to six satellites in the constellation.
Innovative trajectory
The route to Mars might impress fans of innovation and fuel saving -- once the Ariane rocket lifts the spacecraft into Earth orbit, they rely upon on-board propulsion to push themselves into lunar and Earth flybys for gravity-assisted travel to Mars.
Micromission then would be the first to use a lunar flyby to get to Mars, Lehman said.
About a year ago, Hughes used a lunar flyby to put a communications satellite into orbit after a rocket left it in the wrong place in space, he said.
For now, five or 10 people work with Lehman to calculate the first Micromission's trajectory and how to build the Mars Network so it is useful to the agencies that might send probes to Mars in coming years.
Elachi said that moving up the deployment schedule of the Mars Internet could delay other parts of the Mars exploration program. Pushing back the Mars Surveyor 2001 lander mission is not ruled out, nor is a hold on the first sample return missions, currently set for launch in 2003 and 2005.
"We have to learn how to land safely on Mars if we want to explore it," Elachi said.
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