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	NASA to Announce Future Mars Exploration Plans posted: 10:31 am ET 26 October 2000

NASA's overall plan for Mars exploration over the next two

NASA is set today to unveil a long-awaited rehab of its Mars exploration plan, a two-decade program that responds to recent lost missions but also may feature some adventurous approaches to robotic exploration of the Red Planet.

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The briefing is set for 1 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (05:00 GMT) at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C., however one source says the event may be postponed to Friday or early next week. The event will be broadcast on NASA-TV, which can be viewed on SPACE.com.

The document set for an unveiling today is expected to usher in new types of missions slated for launch in 2005 and beyond, while delaying others most notably a bid to return Martian samples to Earth for study.

What NASA will launch toward Mars in 2005, 07 and possibly for every 26 months beyond that remains a multibillion-dollar question.

Proposed future Mars probes include the usual slate of orbiters and landers, but also probes with some advanced technologies, such as inflatable rovers, scattering "scout" microprobes, balloons, flying robots and the ability to spy features as small as 12 inches (30 centimeters) across from orbit, or drill hundreds of yards (meters) deep while on the surface.

The plan is the result of six months of intensive planning involving NASA and international partners and builds on the already announced plans for an orbiter to be launched in 2001 and twin rovers in 2003.

As part of a clean-slate approach to reassembling its plans to scientifically assault Mars, NASA solicited input from a broad range of scientists, some 40 aerospace companies and its own dozen centers scattered across the country.

Among the presenters at the briefing will be Edward Weiler, NASA's associate administrator of space science; Scott Hubbard, NASA's Mars Program director; Jim Garvin, NASA's Mars Program scientist; and Firouz Naderi, the Mars Program manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

The reconfigured plan sparked by the losses of the Mars Climate Orbiter and Mars Polar Lander spacecraft last year will keep the agencys long-established goals for the Red Planet intact. Paramount among those is the hunt for water, and what it means for life, resources, geology and climate on Mars.

Spooked by the losses, the agency quickly scrapped plans for another lander attempt in 2001 and reconfigured the lineup for its 2003 shot, opting to send the twin rovers, but no orbiter.

However, NASA has pressed on with plans to launch an orbiter in 2001. Officials have provisionally dubbed the probe the "2001 Mars Odyssey," in homage to science fiction author Sir Arthur C. Clarke whose 2001: A Space Odyssey inspired the name.