Development of a NASA strategy for Mars exploration
Abstract
NASA recently formed a panel to provide input on a comprehensive strategic plan for Mars exploration beyond sample return. This action recognizes that the Mars environment is an integrated system from the deep interior to the upper atmosphere and solar-wind interactions, that each component of the system can affect the others, and that results from sample return will not address all of the compelling scientific questions about Mars. This panel was formed as a response to a recommendation from "Visions into Voyages, a Midterm Review Conducted by the National Academy of Science, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM)"; that report recommended "that NASA should develop a comprehensive Mars Exploration Program (MEP) architecture, strategic plan, . . . that address the science goals for Mars exploration outlined in [the Planetary Decadal Survey's] Vision and Voyages." The mid-term review's challenge to NASA was to manage "the MEP as a program, rather than just as a series of missions, [enabling] science optimization at the architectural level." The NASA panel, named the Mars Architecture Strategy Working Group (MASWG), is carrying out its activities from fall 2019 through summer 2020, with a final report expected in the July 2020 time frame. Our findings will address: - Priorities for science that could and should be done in addition to, or in parallel with, the planned Mars Sample Return campaign, building on the science goals outlined in Vision & Voyages and updated in the MEPAG Goals Document. - A survey of the compelling science addressable by various classes of missions, from small spacecraft to flagships, during the period 2020-2035. - The role and functions of a program in developing technologies, infrastructure, and partnerships (international and commercial) able to address compelling science in the specified time horizon. Acknowledgements: This work was carried out under contracts with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
- Publication:
-
43rd COSPAR Scientific Assembly. Held 28 January - 4 February
- Pub Date:
- January 2021
- Bibcode:
- 2021cosp...43E.411J