# Presentation: 668811

## MSL landing Site Workshop

_***Michael Meyer***_
_***31 May 2006***_

## Where We Are...Right Now

**Notes:**
Immediate changes to sustain this decade (Phoenix & MSL) were necessary
    Cancellation of MTO and MLCD
Deletion of 2005 funds for Mars Human Precursor work
Reduction of Program and Project reserves
Reduction of fiscal year carryover
Push some 2005 work into 2006

Maintaining international agreements on ExoMars participation—instruments and communications support

Today is the day to revel in your accomplishments since the February MEPAG.  
Outstanding science and great breakthroughs in our understanding of Mars—Mike, Dan and others will talk about that in detail today
Tomorrow I’m going to ask you to take these discoveries and some additional information, and provide feedback on revisions to the 2002 architecture of the Next Decade in Mars exploration
We have some exciting opportunities, but also have some challenges to overcome as a community, but we’ll save that for tomorrow.

## The Near-Future Program

**Mission Priorities**
- Orbital asset maintenance and MRO
- MSL 2009
- Phoenix 2007
**Scout Program and Scout-11**
- Draft AO released
- Award *up to three* 9 month Phase A’s in October 2006
- Downselect before October 2007
- 12 month Phase B
- 36 month Phase C/D
- MoO included, avenue for international collaboration
- If >12 month orbiter, must also serve as telecom relay
**Continue successful orbiter-lander interconnection**
**Maintain telecomm infrastructure through scientific orbiters**
**Continue public, educational and international exposure**
**Opportunistic measurements for human exploration of Mars**

## Where We Are Now

***Program funding expected to remains slightly below the FY05 budget level***
- Growth rate capped at 1.0-1.2%
***Operating Missions reduced***
***All Program Management elements reduced***
- E/PO
- Reserves
- Other Program elements
***Technology significantly reduced***
***Scout AO MoO available funding reduced***

**The President’s **_***proposed***_** FY07 budget to Congress**

## Summary MEP Status

- Outstanding science has been, and will continue to be done, however:
- We are likely to remain in a challenging resources environment
- The President’s budget has not yet been approved
- MSL is critical to establishing the next decade
- Keep it in ’09 or possibly lose it
- Missions past ’16 are dependent on future budget and discoveries
- Overall, the program is fragile
*Any* demands for additional funds must come from something else in the Program
- Technology is at a critical juncture—2013/2016 focus only
- International collaboration can open opportunities to enhance this portfolio of missions
- Human Exploration linkage needs to be maintained in support of the Vision

## Mars Science Laboratory

- Mars Science Laboratory

- Design Concept

## MSL Landing Site Workshop

- The purpose of the Landing Site workshop is to identify and evaluate potential landing sites best suited to achieving stated mission science objectives within the constraints imposed by engineering requirements, planetary protection requirements, and the necessity of ensuring a safe landing.

- Assess the *biological potential* of at least one target environment identified prior to MSL or discovered by MSL.
- Characterize the *geology* of the landing region at all appropriate spatial scales (i.e., ranging from micrometers to meters).
- Investigate planetary processes of relevance to *past* *habitability*, including the role of water
- Characterize the broad-spectrum of the surface radiation environment, including galactic cosmic radiation, solar proton events, and secondary neutrons

## MSL Landing Site Workshop

- _Why a workshop?_
- Ensure we have the full and diverse input from the scientific community to derive the most scientifically compelling landing sites . . . that are within the engineering constraints.
- Use the knowledge of the scientific community to determine the degree to which a landing site is safe.
- Provide the opportunity for a rapid dissemination of new ideas and discoveries, and their relative importance concerning where to go on Mars

## Science Payload

**Remote Sensing (Mast)**
**ChemCam** – Laser Induced Breakdown Spectrometer (chemical composition/imaging)
**MastCam** - Color Stereo Imager
**Contact Instruments (Arm)**
**MAHLI** - Microscopic Imager
***APXS** - Proton/X-ray Backscatter Spectrometer (chemical composition)
**Analytical Laboratory (Front Chassis)**
**SAM** - Gas Chromatograph/Mass Spectrometer/ Tunable Laser Spectrometer                             (sample composition/organics detection/isotopes)
**CheMin** - X-ray Diffraction / Florescence           (sample mineralogy/chemical composition)

***REMS****

***ChemCam***

***MastCam***

***RAD*****

***SAM***

***CheMin***

***APXS****

***MAHLI***

***MARDI***

***DAN****

- *- Foreign Contribution
- ** - ESMD Contribution

**Environmental Characterization **
**(Body-mount****)**
**MARDI** - Descent Imager
***REMS** - Meteorological monitoring
****RAD** - Surface Radiation Flux Monitor
***DAN** - Neutron backscatter subsurface hydrogen (water/ice) detection

- Design Concept

## <footer>

- 10 May, 2006

## “First Light” for MRO’s HiRISE

**“****First Light” for MRO’s HiRISE**

**Argyre region**
**March 24, 2006**
**2489km altitude**
**50km x 24km Image**
**20,000 pixels**
**2.5 m/pixel**

## CRISM:  Improved Spatial Spectral Resolution

*OMEGA (300-1000 m/pixel,13 nm/ch.): discovers large deposits*

* **CRISM targeted hyperspectral (20 m/pixel, 7 nm/ch): characterizes deposits*

## MSL Capstone Mission

*Characterize discovered organics *
*Perform definitive mineralogy*
*Measure surface radiation, concomitant in space (Odyssey); also of relevance to human exploration*
*As demonstrated by MER, mobility will enable measurement of lateral regional heterogeneity of minerals and organic compounds, central to understanding the potential habitability of Mars.*
*MRO orbital, global geologic measurements will be ground-truthed by MSL through local surface remote sensing and *in situ* measurements *

***MSL Capstone Mission***

**At the threshold of the next decade, MSL will assess whether Mars could have been conducive for life, and set the pathway for future exploration**