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NASA / JPL-Caltech file
NASA's Curiosity rover undergoes testing at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 2011. A new rover planned for launch in 2020 would use Curiosity's basic design, NASA says.
NASA today announced a $1.5 billion plan to build another Mars rover based on the design of its current Curiosity rover, with the intention of sending it to the Red Planet in 2020 and perhaps storing up samples for later return to Earth.
The move comes less than a year after the space agency said it couldn't afford to contribute $1.4 billion to the European-led Exomars missions, and it seems likely to stir new debate within the planetary science community. Hoped-for missions to other interplanetary destinations, such as the Jovian moon Europa, could conceivably be impacted further by the revised plans for Mars exploration.
John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for science at NASA Headquarters, insisted that the budget could handle the new commitment. "This mission concept fits within the current and projected Mars exploration budget, builds on the exciting discoveries of Curiosity, and takes advantage of a favorable launch opportunity," he said in a NASA news release.
He said the future rover would be built on the same basic design used for the Curiosity rover, which landed on Mars in August, and thus capitalize on the work that was done during Curiosity's development for its $2.5 billion Mars Science Laboratory mission. Like Curiosity, the new rover would be nuclear-powered, thanks to a spare radioisotope thermoelectric generator. Grunsfeld said the use of spare parts and existing designs would result in cost savings.
"It's the availability of the spare parts, but also the people, the engineering that went into building Curiosity that we still have," he told reporters.
Grunsfeld announced the plan during a town-hall session at the American Geophysical Union's fall meeting in San Francisco. Based on Twitter updates from the meeting, reaction was deeply mixed. "NASA town meeting audience is very quiet," Lindy Elkins-Tanton of the Carnegie Institution of Washington tweeted. "I think we are all in shock."
Projected budget cuts have cast a pall of uncertainty over future plans for interplanetary probes, but the idea of bringing samples back from Mars for study on Earth is on top of planetary scientists' priority list for the next decade. Grunsfeld told his AGU audience that the rover could have the capability to gather and store samples for later return, depending on how its science mission is defined. NASA said a science definition team would be selected to outline the mission's objectives, and that the selection of payload and scientific instruments for the mission would then be openly competed.
NASA said the mission would also help lay the groundwork for human exploration of Mars.
"The Obama administration is committed to a robust Mars exploration program," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said in today's statement. "With this next mission, we're ensuring America remains the world leader in the exploration of the Red Planet, while taking another significant step toward sending humans there in the 2030s."
Two rovers are currently in operation on Mars — Curiosity and Opportunity. Meanwhile, three working spacecraft are orbiting the Red Planet: the European Space Agency's Mars Express as well as NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Mars Odyssey orbiter. Next year, NASA is due to launch the $500 million MAVEN orbiter to study Mars' upper atmosphere. In 2016, NASA plans to send a $425 million lander called InSight to delve into Mars' depths.
NASA also plans to participate in the European Space Agency's Exomars program by contributing radios for an orbiter and lander due for launch in 2016, as well as scientific apparatus for a 2018 rover. But the space agency had to trim back its commitment to Exomars early this year, in large part due to the need to cover cost overruns on the James Webb Space Telescope. The Russian Space Agency is filling the gap left by NASA's pullback.
U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., who has been critical of past cutbacks in NASA's planetary science program, applauded the plan announced today.
"In its few short months on Mars, Curiosity has broadened our understanding of our planetary neighbor, and the findings announced thus far point to even greater discoveries as Curiosity continues to explore Gale Crater and Mount Sharp," Schiff said in a written statement. "An upgraded rover with additional instrumentation and capabilities is a logical next step that builds upon now-proven landing and surface operations systems."
However, Schiff said he favored launching the rover in 2018 — when the alignment of Earth and Mars is more favorable, permitting the launch of a heavier payload. "I will be working with NASA, the White House and my colleagues in Congress to see whether advancing the launch date is possible, and what it would entail," he said.
More about Mars:
- Rover finds organic compounds, but are they from Mars?
- Plastic beads on Mars: Rise and fall of a NASA spoof site
- Curiosity captures spooky self-portraits
- Mars rover driving through dried-up riverbed
- More news about Curiosity's mission
Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.
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Thanks Alan for tracking this story... Another rover?.... It seem they should focus on the sample/return aspect. From the article... they want to "store up samples" for "later return". It (in my mind) would be more cost effective to focus on the "return" aspect of the mission and limit the rover component:
Pick a "cherry" spot to land. Core the landing site (3 feet or more). Commence return ops.
No need for "complex analyzing" equipment (we can study it better here) Don't really need the nuclear power source because of brevity in the mission.... The "mother" ship could send out a "appropriately equipped scaled down rover to gather samples and cores (could per-programed sites so no need to "drive")... return to the mother ship and head back to earth... 30 day mission to collect and return.... 18 month round trip... 20 month total mission time (launch window permitting).
I guess I'm a little leery of another rover mission.. duplicating what we not only have done but not immediately seeing what another rover (along with the other three as well as numerous "orbiters") could offer new scientifically.
I would be more in favor of sending "Curiosity II" to another "planet/moon" than Mars (again)
Same here, I was secretly wishing they would send this to some place like Titan or maybe out as far as Miranda. But I also know that the rover probably isn't designed for these sorts of missions in terms of RAD hardening, comms, apparatuses, etc.
You would likely be landing "sky crane" style, so you wouldn't want to core the immediate site. You might want to travel out a bit, core some "non-scorched" area, then return the samples to a launcher.
Yes Tony.. true. I thought about that while I was making the comment... astute as always.
Here's an idea worth exploring. It currently costs more than $10,000 to put a pound of stuff into low Earth orbit. Let's work on bringing that down before doing anything else. I think $100 per pound could be achievable if we had a fully reusable space plane that could operate as frequently as a 747.
Just think of what we could accomplish. We could have theme parks on the Moon and space hotels in orbit for the cost of a couple Space Shuttle launches.
The average person could plan a trip into space. It wouldn't be limited to billionaires.
Why can't we do this?
First, and RLV may or may not be winged...
Second, it's possible, but not easy. Because it will cost more than a new ELV to develop, you have to have stronger justification for the traffic that would make it worth the trouble. (Boeing was able to take the large risk in 747 development, when the markets and destinations were already known.)
Don't get me wrong, you *are* essentially correct, but those same things have been said, just as accurately, for the last 30-40 years. Whenever it happens, it's more likely to be via an entity other than NASA. Possibly through incremental improvements from the suborbital guys. (Damn, I hope the UK Skylon can perform as advertised...)
Oh, and don't expect a lot of support from the space enthusiasts who don't think about leaving this kind if infrastructure behind, they just want desperately to see someone put 'boots on the ground' in the next gravity well, get bored with it, then do it again with the next one farther out. They don't care about that which would improve our ability to get to 'boring/stuck/round and round Low Earth Orbit,' even if it does enable what they want.
Columbus and Magellan needed good 'boring' harbors to start from, too...
There will be worms on Mars
We"give" the "leeches" on Wall St/High St $750 Billion and yet we can afford $1.5B to participate in the European effort, letting Russia (RUSSIA Damn it) take our place.
Good Grief where has the explorer in us gone? Thank (your) God our recent ancestors who opened up the US had bigger balls than we do.
And the worms will be riding around on all the rovers we've sent them.
There will be worms.
The worms will be returned.
Another Rover to Mars? I don't think so! Not with my tax dollars! Three months on Mars with this so called "Super Rover" and the best we get are self portraits, pictures of Phobos, and discovering chemicals what we know should already be there? Reeelly? C'mon now. The information so far my scientific friends does not justify $2.5billion. Sure I want to hear Opportunity has found microbial life or better, but at least tell me something better than what you have. Gold, Oil, a 57 Chevy, heck I don't care, but something better than what this waste of money has sent back so far or forget about me agreeing that my tax $ finance another rover mission.
Scientific advancement through basic inquiry is made with modest discovery more often than leaps and bounds. So what would you prefer your tax dollars be 'wasted' on, exactly? As a scientist, I would gladly spend MORE money on taxes for science if I could, than for all the useless crap that they are actually being spent on. And do you realize just how small the amount of your taxes that goes to NASA is?
We are falling behind in the world scientifically. That is largely because of people with your mindset.
Unfortunately, people come to expect a chain of dramatic, movie-like discoveries.
It almost never works that way...
Keoni - C'mon now, what did you really expect? Martians?
Less than one percent of the federal budget is used for NASA.
Less than one percent of the federal budget is used for NASA.
Science happens at the pace of Science. It's slow, it's methodical, it's decision based. It's not at an exciting, wiz-bang pace. Plus - it doesn't necessarily find what we want it to find, it finds truths. Perhaps there is no life, perhaps there never was. If that's the truth, then that's what it will find. Finding life is't required to make this mission a success, and not finding life doesn't make the mission a failure.
PS> For the record, I think there probably is/was - and I think if we keep looking, we will discover it. I'm just saying that not finding life isn't a failure, we will learn lots either way. :)
If you don't want your tax dollars to go to paying for scientific research and discovery, you can submit gov. form number ID-10-T and have your $1.42 returned to you.
To starbuck49:
Is this for real, or are you BS-ing us with the submit.gov thing?
keoni-1581939 is the typical mini balled American that in a different time would have been be sat in Portugal telling Columbus "not with my Escudo"
$2.5 billion would buy you less than 10 minutes in Iraq and Afghanistan. I think this is a better use of money.
Your expectations of such rapid research return from this rover are completely asinine.
Cornerstone Automotive, LLC
Google government form ID-10-T, you can find it there. Glad I could help.
I have to admit that this doesn't quite make sense to me. Why not send this Curiosity-style rover to a different planet or maybe a moon? That'd be well worth another 2.5 billion to me.
And the timing doesn't make sense to me. If we are serious about "boots down" on Mars in the 2030's then we should already be seriously planning sample return missions, not "sample storing for future return" missions.
Drill baby drill. Not here, but on Europa. Let's see what that moon sized ocean holds. Maybe Titan, the methane based version of our own planet.
That's right mob_barley I realize that "slow methodical" science is part of the process but sending yet another rover, I believe, is counter intuitive. Another planet.. gothcha.. Mars again?... the most well studied planet (outside of Earth) in the solar system? It doesn't make sense to me.. no need to rush Curiosity I , let the science come at it's own pace but to send a "similarly" equipped rover?
I could see it IF it landed lets say at the polar boundaries... that may produce some worthy science that warrant further study.
Unless they were planning on having the mission team return the samples.... but that wouldn't make much sense, because the mission team could get their own samples to return. So that begger's the question: How do they intend on returning the samples from Mars? Something tells me that a rover based launch system would be infeasible at best, most likely damn near impossible give our current technology. Unless the folks at NASA have a new trick up their sleeves, then this could get down right interesting.
All these worlds are yours to explore except Europa, make no attempt to land there.
It's probably designed specifically for the Martian environment. Different planetary body, different rover specs.
How's it going, Mob? Haven't seen your posts in a while?
I imagine that the specs are for Mars, but since all those parts already exist it wouldn't, theoretically, be too hard to adapt the design to a different planet or moon, and that would probably bring the cost back up toward Curiosity's original price tag.
Tony, it's going well. Life has been busy. I've been trying to stay focused at work more often so that doesn't leave a lot of time to go off on long diatribes and stay as active in the conversation as I would like, but I'm still following the news.
I've kinda been advocating an assembly line for a generic chassis that can be adapted to different environments and have a custom science lab bolted to the frame. Crank 'em out and send 'em off to explore.
Then I look at the people in the clean suits, and realize that they cannot create them en-masse via assembly line, because they are keeping them sterile.
"...but since all those parts already exist it wouldn't, theoretically, be too hard to adapt the design to a different planet or moon..."
Why?
Different environment, different temperature extremes...oh, and the landing sequence is a whole other thing. The only other places of interest it could even remotely go that has an atmosphere is Venus (seriously too hot), or Titan (seriously too cold).
Can this hardware function (not just ride dormant) in complete vacuum? Far from the Sun, it's not so bad when you're not in an ultra cold atmosphere that sucks heat from all your surfaces, but even in vacuum, you can still radiate all your heat away. Landing on Europa 'instead' might sound nice (the ice will be much too thick to drill through, though), but it's in the Jovian VanAllen belts. Can its electronics stand that kind of ionizing radiation environment for long?
No, it's not that simple...
Makes no sense whatsoever... Curiosity will last 30 years? more or less? Why in the world do you need another over on that planet. Send it somewhere else or do a quick Martian soil grab (sample) and shoot it back to Earth deal...
Well, I understand that it would be more 'exciting' to have a totally different mission to a totally different destination. However, there is TON's of science to be done by other rovers. Can you imagine dropping a rover onto Earth, and having it move around a few KM in each direction, and to presume that we would then know everything there is to know about Earth? :)
nothing wrong with starting the planning stages, for one thing they now have a buggy design worthy (defacto so far) of a sort of mass production, BUT...and here is the clincher....it would be extremely wise to hold off on another MARS rover for just a bit longer, so as to realize any shortcomings with the "model T alphabetagamma one" design. Prudent to say the LEAST...we already know not to expose weather vane circut boards...as well we just beginning to get a better grip on the chemistry, perhaps a bit more info will help decide if some other instrument should be added or deleted. In that vein, I would not care if they sent a DOZEN rovers to mars!! the more the merrier!!...but at some point the rovers need to become more productive, literally, like making rocket fuel, distilling water, making a temporary shelter, paving a landing zone, planting a couple of greenhouses...you know, the MUNDANE chores every great space traveler takes for granted..this should already be up on a big planning board somewhere where a little bit of push or pull by an administration is about the only force de exert of any political body is allowed...meanwhile, for NEW biger better missions....onward, mars aint the only strange rock out there.
Good point, Curiosity seems to have shown that the design works, when no one was really sure it would - so naturally it's tempting to do it again, to prove it works and was not a lucky hit.
Mars is dead, lets move on.
I am curious to find out what is underneath the ice on Europa. If there is any life any where else in the solar system it will be most likely on Europa.
I agree that find life else where is very important and, indeed, worth the billions of dollars estimates but don't use it to keep beating a dead corpse. Lets move one, besides I don't think I can stomach any shoestring Mars landing like the last, :-)
I only agree with the part where you mention OTHER systems. If there is not shrimp or some close cousin of earth sea life on Europa, I will seriously question the hypothesis of transpermia. If our cause was seek evidence of life, it would make sense to look far and wide, and places like europa and enceladous should be at the top of the list, even a sample return mission from Jup's atmosphere should be on the table as well!! but the bottom line is we should be spreading the robot revolution far and wide and reach out and touch EVERY possible planet and moon in the solar system ASAP!!. I do believe that should be the priority. Drawing upon parameters basic robots could distill from each planet, we might have a better dataset to make universal explorer rovers and just dress em up for each specialized mission, take a modified cookie cutter approach and just get on with the science on an industrial scale, like any good ole space faring civilization would.....I gave ya a check becuase later we might need people to say "other missions, other planets" in the direct future should jpl build the proverbial, all feared and well known, Ivory Tower, where mars science becomes an institution and more dollars ends up being less science. Too avoid such a natural human mechanism WILL require hawks eagles and everyone else to keep prodding em onward.
Well, I have no problem with more Mars rovers and sounds to me they can do it at a reasonable price. What I heard Monday was that they found solid evidence of life on Mars. They just can't prove it enough to actually use those words.
They have a nice array of equipment on Curiosity, but what they don't have is a true microscope. An electron microscope would be nice, but maybe something not quite that good could be developed. The MAHLI camera on Curiosity is sometimes called a microscope, but in reality its best resolution is a pixel being 14 microns in size. Better than the unaided eye but not really very high power. Typical bacteria is a few microns in size so that's far smaller than it can see. The human unaided eye can detect objects about 100 microns in size. Curiosity "sees" very small things by basically taking them apart and analyzing the constituent chemistry.
If we had samples back here on Earth, one of the first things we'd want to do is look at the samples under a microscope.
There are some major technological challenges to actually see very small things in a way to recognize them. If you have ever looked at something in a decent optical microscope at say just 100X, it is quite a challenge getting the desired object in the field of view and then getting it in focus. Physically getting the object where you need it as well as getting it properly lit. Preparing samples and properly positioning and focusing remotely on Mars without human intervention would be quite the task. Curiosity is doing some sophisticated science on the samples, but it isn't actually "looking" at them with any great visual detail. If we could visually see down to a micron or a bit better, it could potentially tell us a lot more than we know right now.
Interesting conversation. Can we have too many rovers on Mars? Maybe not, but we should get the return trip business figured out. I would like to see us take the next step out (a big one) and try something in the Jovian system. A number of good targets there. Or skip that and go to Enceladus which, if we are looking for life, could be our best bet in this star system.
Keoni...You are exactly right...another rover to take a rock from this pile and place it in that pile over there?
Then...wait years before we go load up the new pile and bring it back? At a cost of how many BILLIONS?
And NASA wonders why it has lost the support of the average citizen who pays for this insanity.
This plan sounds like it originated in one of the chapters of the Peter Principle...
53 years ago, my generation was excited and thinking it was on the way to the planets...53 years later, we, at a cost of hundreds of billions of dollars, are still in low earth orbit. And...we haven't any real plans/commitment to doing anything else.
As for the small amount of the federal budget that NASA receives, Mr. Boyle, I do NOT believe that if the average citizen realized this would be the status in 50 + years, NASA would have gotten 1/100 of 1 % of the federal budget...Not if the tax payer had anything to say about it...which we do NOT.
53 years ago NASA had a much bigger budget. The moon trips weren't very economical. They were a brute force way of getting things done.
They also went against NASA's grand vision at the time, which was a methodical approach. First LEO. Then an easy regular way to get there. Then build a station. Then launch from that station to deeper destinations. In 53+ years, we've done this. But it's been on a shoestring budget, so the plans had to be scaled. The Space Shuttle was supposed to be the easy regular way to get there. It was supposed to go to Skylab, which would be the foundation for a bigger base, one capable of building craft in LEO and repairing satellites. We have the ISS, much smaller than the Space Station Freedom (the bigger base) and lacking fundamental capabilities, like in-orbit repair and construction.
To Alan Boyle, MSNBC Space Contributor,
I wish to thank you for participating in these comment forums. I view a lot of different ones (Autos, Space, Science, Business, etc), and you seem to be the only MSNBC article contributor who actively answers/responds to all of us. It personally gives me a level of assurance that you truly do care, especially when I saw recently that you admitted to a small oops on one article.
Keep up the good work!
Regards,
John
second that!
I agree! Thanks, Alan!
Ditto.
Sounds like the politician just likes the idea as a "cheap" mini jobs program? Cheap only because you have some reusable parts. Getting back some expensive rocks would be good for his State museum I suppose.
At some point there is a line to be drawn. I think Elon Musk has the best idea IF we have decided to populate Mars rather than first doing centuries of solar system "mining" work to build a bigger Mars first.
Send other exploration vehicles to various watery moons. Doubling or tripling the NASA budget will lead to future products and services more quickly. Using Mars for a mini jobs program is a bad idea.
I don't get it. With all this talk about, the public interest being so low, when it comes to our space programs. Would it make any deference to the politicians that decide how much money NASA gets for future projects, what the people want? So far they can't agree to anything for the good of anyone. I do agree with some comments, that NASA should work on a project to bring back samples from Mars, rather than just looking at samples they find on Mars.
Mars Rover is apparently nuclear powered. Wonder when that technology will transfer to the rest of us. Hmmm.
I have been considering what we know about mars now thanks to Oscy, and I figure it like this. If someone on earth was to get a mars soil specimen capsule, sealed on mars in mars atmosphere, and twisted it open here on earth atmosphere...There'd be one hell of a reaction....anyone want to venture a guess as to what sort of reactions might make an earth bound scientist to second guess a quick sneak peak at a newly returned martian soil sample????
hints, think hydrides and hydrates...
I'm no scientist or chemist (just an ex-Elect Eng), but are you referencing to something like Andromeda Strain?
Ice-nine. Maybe we will have a station on the Moon for that by then.
it's all in the chemistry, it could be almost obvious and I figure in a few years chem profs will see it and use it as one of those cool things go boom science lecture demonstrations to keep the kids in the back awake during class...