[meteorite-list] Getting To Mars On A Budget

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Fri, 30 Jul 2010 12:42:02 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <201007301942.o6UJg2FK017315_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n1007/29scout/

Getting to Mars on a budget
BY STEPHEN CLARK
SPACEFLIGHT NOW
July 29, 2010

NASA is discontinuing the Mars Scout line of relatively low-cost
missions to the Red Planet, but there is still an opening for
resourceful scientists seeking an inexpensive ticket for Mars research.

The end of the Mars Scout program comes after it fostered two missions,
the Phoenix polar lander launched in 2007 and the MAVEN orbiter that
will study the Martian atmosphere after its 2013 blastoff.

NASA says it is scrapping the Mars Scout mission line because future
Martian probes will be heading to the surface. Most lander missions are
more expensive than orbiters, and it would be challenging for a future
surface probe to fit within the $485 million cost cap for Scout projects.

Doug McCuistion, NASA's chief Mars program official, said the agency is
opening up its Discovery program to robotic Mars missions, beginning
with an ongoing competition to select the next solar system exploration
mission for launch between 2015 and 2017.

"We're in a phase where surface science is becoming more and more the
driving factor at Mars," McCuistion said in a July 14 interview.

Launched in the 1990s, the Discovery program broke onto the public stage
with the highly successful Pathfinder rover that landed on Mars in 1997.
Pathfinder was the Discovery program's second mission.

But NASA later shut out Mars from Discovery competitions, decreeing
proposals could go anywhere in the solar system except Mars or the sun.
The agency formed the Mars Scout program to develop budget-minded
projects devoted to the Red Planet, while NASA also accelerated more
costly and ambitious missions to Mars.

NASA kicked off the competition for the 12th Discovery mission in June
and is collecting proposals from science teams through Sept. 3.

Officials plan to choose candidates in April 2011 and announce the final
selection in June 2012. Discovery proposals must cost less than $425
million, not including partnerships or launch services.

Phil Christensen, an Arizona State University scientist, said he is
involved in several Mars proposals for the next Discovery mission.

"I really don't know how Mars will fare in the Discovery program, but
there certainly are a lot of non-Mars concepts," Christensen told
Spaceflight Now. "I think if the Mars concepts have the highest science
value then they will be very seriously considered, especially since
there is currently no other way to get small mission concepts flown to
Mars."

Christensen is a prolific Mars researcher and currently works on the
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, Mars Odyssey, and Spirit and Opportunity
rovers. None of his Discovery proposals are surface missions,
Christensen said.

"I suspect someone might try to do one, but that will be pretty
challenging in the Discovery program," Christensen said.

Peter Smith, the lead scientist on the Phoenix lander, said it is a
challenge to fit a worthwhile Mars mission into Discovery's $425 million
cost cap.

"Discovery proposals never have enough funding as you like," Smith said
in an interview Tuesday. "It will be tough" to conduct a Mars surface
mission on a Discovery budget, he said.

Smith, a researcher at the University of Arizona, is part of a proposal
to follow-up on Phoenix, which returned data from the northern polar
plains of Mars for six months in 2008.

"If we can make the case on cost, hopefully NASA will consider Mars in
the Discovery selection," Smith said.

McCuistion agrees, saying economic realities will likely prohibit Mars
Scout from returning again.

"Most of the science is on the surface," McCuistion said. "And it's very
difficult, if not impossible, in a Scout-sized budget to do National
Academy (of Sciences)-class science on the surface. While we didn't plan
it that way, I think it came at the appropriate time."

NASA's next mission to the Martian surface is the Curiority rover, a
$2.3 billion mission to determine whether the planet was ever habitable.

After MAVEN, the final Scout mission, launches in late 2013, NASA will
partner with the European Space Agency for a methane-sniffing orbiter in
2016 and a nearly $3 billion dual-rover landing mission in 2018.

The joint Mars program was formed with an eye toward a sample return
mission in the 2020s.

The audacious missions planned for the next decade will also consume a
larger share of NASA's Mars budget, limiting funds for more frequent,
less expensive Scout-class missions.

Previous unselected Scout proposals included small impactor-type
landers, aerial vehicles and balloons, and orbiters.
Received on Fri 30 Jul 2010 03:42:02 PM PDT