[meteorite-list] Next NASA Mars Mission Rescheduled for 2011 (MSL)

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu, 4 Dec 2008 09:44:17 -0800 (PST)
Message-ID: <200812041744.JAA23985_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2008/dec/HQ_08-319_MSL_2011.html

Dwayne Brown
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1726
dwayne.c.brown at nasa.gov
 
Guy Webster
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-354-6278
guy.webster at jpl.nasa.gov
 
Dec. 04, 2008
 
RELEASE : 08-319
 
Next NASA Mars Mission Rescheduled for 2011
 
WASHINGTON -- NASA's Mars Science Laboratory will launch two years later
than previously planned, in the fall of 2011. The mission will send a
next-generation rover with unprecedented research tools to study the
early environmental history of Mars.

A launch date of October 2009 no longer is feasible because of testing
and hardware challenges that must be addressed to ensure mission
success. The window for a 2009 launch ends in late October. The relative
positions of Earth and Mars are favorable for flights to Mars only a few
weeks every two years. The next launch opportunity after 2009 is in 2011.

"We will not lessen our standards for testing the mission's complex
flight systems, so we are choosing the more responsible option of
changing the launch date," said Doug McCuistion, director of the Mars
Exploration Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Up to this
point, efforts have focused on launching next year, both to begin the
exciting science and because the delay will increase taxpayers'
investment in the mission. However, we've reached the point where we can
not condense the schedule further without compromising vital testing."

The Mars Science Laboratory team recently completed an assessment of the
progress it has made in the past three months. As a result of the team's
findings, the launch date was changed.

"Despite exhaustive work in multiple shifts by a dedicated team, the
progress in recent weeks has not come fast enough on solving technical
challenges and pulling hardware together," said Charles Elachi, director
of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "The right and
smart course now for a successful mission is to launch in 2011."

The advanced rover is one of the most technologically challenging
interplanetary missions ever designed. It will use new technologies to
adjust its flight while descending through the Martian atmosphere, and
to set the rover on the surface by lowering it on a tether from a
hovering descent stage. Advanced research instruments make up a science
payload 10 times the mass of instruments on NASA's Spirit and
Opportunity Mars rovers. The Mars Science Laboratory is engineered to
drive longer distances over rougher terrain than previous rovers. It
will employ a new surface propulsion system.

Rigorous testing of components and systems is essential to develop such
a complex mission and prepare it for launch. Tests during the middle
phases of development resulted in decisions to re-engineer key parts of
the spacecraft.

"Costs and schedules are taken very seriously on any science mission,"
said Ed Weiler, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission
Directorate at NASA Headquarters. "However, when it's all said and done,
the passing grade is mission success."

The mission will explore a Mars site where images taken by NASA's
orbiting spacecraft indicate there were wet conditions in the past. Four
candidate landing sites are under consideration. The rover will check
for evidence of whether ancient Mars environments had conditions
favorable for supporting microbial life and preserving evidence of that
life if it existed there.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages the Mars Science Laboratory
project for the Science Mission Directorate.

For more information about the Mars Science Laboratory, visit:

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl

- end -

 
Received on Thu 04 Dec 2008 12:44:17 PM PST