Running head: mission scope robotic Mars Surface Exploration Mission Scope

Robotic Mars Surface Exploration Mission Scope

Camryn Burley

Robotic Mars Surface Exploration Mission Scope

Mars has a long history of inspiring humans to ask questions and explore it, by conducting fly-by missions, orbiting the planet, and actually landing on the surface. Mars continues to fascinate the leading minds of the world today by remaining mysterious about its past climate, geology, potential for life, and the ability of humans to perform manned missions there. This mission proposes to continue the search for life, by seeking evidence of past and present life and analyzing the potential for life to be sustained in the future at specific sites on the Martian surface. The past missions to Mars, questions driving the scientific research, possible benefactors, concepts of operations (ConOps), and assumptions and constraints all play a key role in this mission and defining its scope.

Past and present missions to Mars, whether successful in carrying out the intended mission goals, have answered and are in the process of answering some, but not nearly all, of the questions about the red planet. These missions are important to look at, in order to ensure that a new mission does not completely repeat the efforts of a previous undertaking and to analyze the skills and technologies that resulted from them. Following is a table of the past, present, and future missions to Mars along with their goals and objectives (National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), 2015a).

This mission’s importance lies in the ongoing search for life on Mars. By employing a new type of search for life, by digging beneath the surface, scientists may get answers to their questions. A prominent concern is whether Mars ever was habitable or currently sustains life. This mission fulfills all parts of that question, as both the past and the present will be examined. The mission goes one step further to even analyze the future of life on Mars by determining if there is a site on Mars that exhibits similar conditions to a habitable zone on Earth. Should humans decide to introduce life, whether on purpose, such as to terraform the planet, or by accident, such as a bacteria that escapes a lab or was transported via humans or their equipment, it is important to know their ability to grow and to change Mars. It will be significant to know if anything that humans introduce while on a manned mission could be supported by Mars and its potential effects on the environment there. The mission satisfies current MEP goals, confirming its usefulness, and will answer fundamental questions about our neighboring planet.

This mission will be beneficial to many here on Earth. One set of benefactors from this mission is the science community. Biologists will know more about Mars’ past, present, and future ability to support life and potentially which organisms reside or resided there. Geologists can determine if making fossils is a process that has only occurred on Earth, or if similar activities take place elsewhere in the solar system. The scientists working on future manned missions to Mars may know more about the potential for life to grow on Mars and how it could affect humans and the Martian environment. Humans the world over will also benefit from this knowledge, especially since a question that intrigues people globally is whether or not life exists on Mars. The benefactors also add importance to the mission.

This mission will collect data on the mission subject, Mars, to accomplish each part of the mission. To find life beneath the surface, the mission will employ technology from a future NASA mission, the ExoMars rover. The Mars Organic Molecule Analyzer (MOMA) will be utilized on that mission to search for the building blocks of life on the surface (NASA, 2015a). For this mission, the same technology will be applied, but used as the rover digs to take samples from beneath the surface, acting as an extension to the ExoMars rover mission. MOMA will take samples at regular intervals as the rover burrows deeper into the Martian crust to ensure that the search for life has occurred at various depths. Another type of technology, currently being used on Earth, will be sent to Mars to look for life in the present. The Subsurface Explorer for Assessment of Life (SEAL) is an eight-foot long biology probe shaped like a torpedo that searches for life below Earth’s surface (Villard, 2013). These will be invaluable in the search for life on Mars. To pursue fossils under the Martian surface, the rover will be equipped with a microscope to enlarge and then take pictures of the samples. The images will be sent back to scientists, who will examine them for the presence of extremely small fossils. Perhaps even classrooms or volunteers could inspect the images, to help scientists identify any potential fossils out of the great volume of images sent. For the future aspect of this mission, MOMA will again be applied to the situation. It will search for organic molecules in the site determined to resemble Earth. A miniaturized ultraviolet microscope, to detect bioluminescence (Villard, 2013), will also investigate. Other data will also be collected at that site, such as humidity, temperature, presence of a food source, potentially chemicals, among others, to decide if the two sites are similar and if the Mars location could support life.

Landing sites need to be carefully chosen to ensure that the proposed data will be able to be collected and to have the best chance for getting results. Since the mission is comprised of two parts, including the digging and the Earth-Mars site correlation, two sites and two rovers will be used. Two rovers are necessary, as the mission makes the most sense with two sites being investigated. The first portion, searching for life currently sustained below the Martian surface and fossils as evidence of past life, will require a site positioned near a formation that appears as if it has been shaped by water, as organisms would have had to have been near a water source (Erickson, 2015). Gusev Crater, visited by the Mars rover Spirit, was once a lakebed (Mars Spaceflight Facility, Arizona State University, 2014), which satisfies this requirement. Spirit also left a lot of it unexplored (Mars Spaceflight Facility, Arizona State University, 2014), meaning that it is a valuable area to continue to study. Gusev Crater is pictured to the right (United States Geological Survey (USGS), 2015). The second site is to be determined by a committee of scientists and officials from various fields who will decide which site on Mars will be able to be best correlated to a selected site from Earth.

The concepts of operation (ConOps) will allow the data to be collected. The mission will launch in May of 2018, an optimal time to go to Mars. The travel time to Mars will be between six and eight months (Mars One, 2015). At least a year will be spent collecting data, as it will take time to dig far beneath the surface, and many samples will also be taken. The mission elements include two rovers, one large enough to dig, acting as a subsurface explorer, the other smaller to examine the Earth-Mars site correlation, an orbiter spacecraft, and a multi-stage rocket. The following table shows a proposed timeline for the mission. Possible critical events include the landing of the rovers, as historically, that event has been the time at which communications have been lost most frequently (NASA, 2015a). Also, if the landing gear does not work or was not designed properly, the rover could break upon impact. Another critical event would be the digging, because it is unknown exactly what is there. This is also the most exciting part, as life could be found on a planet other than Earth.

In order for this mission to be proposed and scoped, several assumptions must be made. One of these is that the MOMA will work for this application, underground, and that it can be placed in such a position that it will not be damaged during digging. Another assumption is that the technologies needed for all parts of the mission are developed enough for use in this function. This mission also assumes that there is a site on Mars that will work well enough for the site correlation aspect. Finally, it must be supposed that the mission elements can be ready for the planned 2018 launch deadline and will work within the budget constraints.

Fundamental to defining any mission are the constraints, or limitations, of the project. The budget is a primary constraint, because the mission will not have an unlimited money supply, and will decide which facets of the mission get the most attention and the feasibility of the parts. Another constraint is the possible landing sites available. Some places on Mars, though intriguing, do not possess suitable terrain conditions for the rover to land in, or could be too hard or dangerous for the rover to maneuver into and around. A final constraint is the time limit. May 2018 is an optimal time to launch, so it is imperative that the mission elements are ready so that the launch, and thus the mission, do not have to be delayed.

This mission proposes to continue the search for life on Mars, by seeking evidence of past and present life and analyzing the potential for life to be sustained in the future at specific sites on the Martian surface. Key to this mission are analysis of past Mars missions, the questions motivating the scientific research, possible benefactors, concepts of operations, assumptions, and constraints to define the mission and its scope.

Scope Summary

Need: Understand the past, present, and future of life on Mars.

Goal: Find evidence of life on Mars in the past or present and analyze its ability to sustain life in the future.

Objective: Dig deep into the crust of Mars to search for living organisms and fossilized remains and correlate a site on Earth to similar conditions on Mars.

Mission: Transport two rovers to Mars in the same trip to search for evidence of life on Mars.

References

Cain, F. (2014). How can we live on Mars? Retrieved from http://www.universetoday.com/111462/how-can-we-live-on-mars/

Erickson, K. (2015). Is there life on Mars? Retrieved from http://spaceplace.nasa.gov/review/dr-marc-solar-system/life-on-mars.html

Mars One. (2015). How long does it take to travel to Mars? Retrieved from http://www.mars-one.com/faq/mission-to-mars/how-long-does-it-take-to-travel-to-mars

Mars Spaceflight Facility, Arizona State University (2014). Gusev Crater once held a lake after all, says Mars scientist. Retrieved from http://www.astronomy.com/news/2014/04/gusev-crater-once-held-a-lake-after-all-says-mars-scientist

National Aeronautics and Space Administration. (2015a). Missions. Retrieved from http://mars.nasa.gov/programmissions/missions/

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (2015b). Science. Retrieved from http://mars.nasa.gov/programmissions/science/

Sharp, T. (2012). What is Mars made of?: Composition of planet Mars. Retrieved from http://www.space.com/16895-what-is-mars-made-of.html

United States Geological Survey. (2015). Gusav Crater MER landing site ellipse THEMIS IR mosaic. Retrieved from http://astrogeology.usgs.gov/search/details?id=/Mars/Odyssey/THEMIS-IR-Mosaic/gusev_uncontrolled_tone_mos.cub