The future of Mars exploration will be greatly enhanced by humans visiting the Red Planet. The work that astronaut crews can do on this distant world will be far greater than what mechanized Mars machines can accomplish, but certainly at a much greater cost.
To that end, NASA is preparing a moon-to-Mars strategy plan that identifies science as one of three pillars on which the agency’s continued pursuit of human exploration throughout the solar system rests. What is currently being planned is the architecture to achieve this goal.
NASA’s moon to Mars architecture workshops will be hosted by the National Academies Space Studies Board later this month. According to a statement from Nujoud Merancy, Deputy Administrator of the Office of Strategy and Architecture within NASA’s Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate, the space agency is seeking input on science and technology investments that could help humanity return to the moon in a sustainable manner. We are sending a team to Mars.
Relating to: NASA establishes ‘Moon to Mars’ office to help astronauts get to the Red Planet
“Our partnerships with industry, academia, and the international community are helping NASA define an architecture that gives us the power to boldly explore the moon, Mars, and beyond,” Merancy explains.
Tiger team story
Arguably, science conducted by astronauts on the surface of Mars will have the greatest impact on the scope and scale of this architecture. Therefore, deciding on science priorities requires early attention.
Recent history shows that it is long past time for astronauts to be shoehorned into science missions.
This is the key message of a recent study for the Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group (MEPAG); This suggests how and where humans can maximize exploration and science output on the Red Planet.
A MEPAG Tiger Team for the Mars Human Mission Science Objectives was led by: Bruce JakoskyHe is a senior research scientist at the University of Colorado’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics in Boulder, Colorado. Their report was submitted to NASA late last year.
Proactive not reactive
“I think the real value of this report is if we can get it to NASA’s attention,” Jakosky told Space.com in an exclusive interview. “We see a lot of work going on to plan the architecture of manned Mars missions. But science is never on the table. My goal as the head of Team Tiger is to try to bring science into the discussion,” he said.
Packing science into extremes is not the way to do world-class science, Jakosky said. NASA needs to be proactive, not reactive, in integrating science, he said.
NASA’s Apollo program from the 1960s to the early 1970s saw scientists, engineers and astronauts working hand-in-hand, shoulder-to-shoulder, to make sure the science was done, Jakosky said.
“And that’s something I don’t think we see today on Artemis or on Mars,” Jakosky said. “It needs to be an iterative process to make sure science and engineering will work together,” he said.
Science-based landing sites
Jim Head, a prominent planetary researcher at Brown University, was a member of the Tiger Team reporting group.
“NASA is currently updating the goals of the Moon to Mars initiative with an ‘archit right/execute left’ strategy,” Head said. He added that this means: “Working backwards from the defined goal to create all the elements that will be necessary for success. Executing the development of all elements in an orderly manner, integrating them as they move towards the established architecture.”
Head said the MEPAG Tiger Team report was designed to be part of NASA’s strategy, with the group taking into account things like optimal science-based Mars landing sites, types of activities and lengths of stay required to achieve goals and objectives, and potential robotic partnerships.
“Such assessments provide important feedforward information for the Artemis phase, the lunar component of NASA’s Moon to Mars initiative,” Head said.
Real-time interaction and adaptability
Bethany Ehlmann, a member of the Tiger Team reporting group, said Mars holds many clues about early solar system history and how terrestrial planets sustain habitats and life. She is a professor of planetary science at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and director of the Keck Institute for Space Studies in Pasadena, California.
For many forms of geoscience, especially those that involve multiple interactions with the landscape, such as sample collection or deep core drilling, human capabilities are “uniquely enabled” by real-time interaction and adaptability, Ehlmann said.
“People at the EVA event can accomplish in a few hours what takes rovers years of data collection and sample collection,” Ehlmann told Space.com. “As NASA’s Moon-Mars initiative continues, it is important to consider what supporting tools and technologies need to be developed to equip our astronauts to do extraordinary science on Mars.”
Ehlmann ticks off reference missions outlined in the study paper that exemplify a range of possibilities, such as astronauts exploring icy regions, reaching cliffs, exploring higher altitudes on Mars, or organizing expeditions exploring caves.
These case studies highlight how individual and specific tasks can achieve high-value science.
Catalyze the discussion
Tiger Team president Jakosky said the list of cases mentioned in the report Negative represent all potential missions, but “should serve to catalyze discussions within and between the science and discovery communities.”
Proposed missions included planned astronaut expeditions to Utopia Planitia, Valles Marineris, and Cerberus Fossae.
“Any landing site will provide extraordinary scientific results. I think that’s clear,” Jakosky said. “Mars is a very diverse, geologically complex planet. No single site can tell us everything we want to know about Mars.”
One scenario involves teams going naturally on Mars. This is the subsurface study of natural caves; Many Martian caves have been identified before.
There is a need to characterize the habitability conditions of a cave environment, such as water availability, energy sources, and chemical potential. The report also states that it is aimed to determine whether there are signs of life in the cave environment.
Human explorers may land near a target cave and remain inside the habitat for most or most of the mission. They would teleoperate sampling robots placed on the floor of a cave. Doing this would eliminate the delay in operational time compared to conducting a robotic survey from Earth, a “tremendous reduction in decision time,” the report states.
Why are humans on Mars?
The report describes how humans can advance valuable science goals on the Red Planet. Clearly, teams can perform on-site field measurements, local area mapping, and gain underground access from underneath their boots.
The report states that it is very important to select the samples with the highest value to be brought back from the surface, subsurface and atmosphere and to send these samples to laboratories on Earth.
First of all, explorers on Mars can deploy networks of local and regional data collection devices to capture processes being carried out on Mars during and between missions.
From orbit or from the Martian surface, teleoperating robotic assets as a precursor to human aids across Mars can explore regions beyond the reach of a human landing site or exploit a rich variety of terrains and habitats.
Here on Earth, ground controllers are needed to operate the infrastructure needed to ensure human safety and efficient operations on Mars. It is also vital to leverage advanced capabilities to do science, thanks to teams of experts around the world.
high priority science
One of the important signals from the study is the choice of site for doing science with humans on Mars.
“Given the complexity of Mars’ evolutionary history and the tremendous diversity of environments on Mars, no single site can address all high-priority science goals,” the report emphasizes.
One of the key findings of the study is that vital sciences can be performed by humans on Mars; “This is much more difficult or impossible to do with robotic spacecraft; the capabilities of manned missions have the potential to change both goals and priorities and can certainly be accelerated.” speed – for the scientific exploration of Mars.”
When it comes to science work on Mars, Team Tiger set three high-level goals:
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Astrobiology – Determine whether life has developed on Mars and the nature of habitability;
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Climate and volatiles – elucidate the processes and history of water and climate change on Mars; And
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Geology/Geophysics/Geochemistry – Understand the physical record of planetary evolution from planet formation to the present and the processes that have driven the evolution of Mars’ surface, crust, and interior
“What distinguishes Mars from the rest of the solar system is its potential for life, the history of water, the nature of geological processes, and its similarities to Earth,” Jakosky said. “The second is the relative closeness of Mars and the relative ease with which we can explore it,” he said.
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One person very familiar with the report findings is Scott Hubbard, former director of NASA Ames Research Center and now a member of Stanford University’s Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics.
Hubbard served as NASA’s first Mars exploration program director in 2000, restructuring the space agency’s Mars program after multiple failures to explore the planet, earning him the title of “Czar of Mars.”
Hubbard told Space.com that, in Hubbard’s view, the MEPAG Tiger Team report is “an excellent example of human exploration goals based on scientific objectives for Mars.”
Hubbard said he hopes both NASA and the National Academies study will use the Tiger Team report as “significant community input.”
The full text of the “MEPAG Tiger Team’s Mars Human Mission Science Objectives Report” can be read online.