Riding on the success of its widely popular Curiosity's Red Planet landing, NASA has announced a new budget-driven plan for a second Mars rover to be launched in 2020.
The new venture will use spare parts and engineering models developed for Curiosity and by duplicating the first version's chassis sky-crane landing system and other gear, NASA hope to reduce the cost of the new mission to about $1.5 billion including launch costs, John Grunsfeld, the US space agency's associate administrator for science, said at the American Geophysical Union conference in San Francisco, Live Mint reported.
"The 2020 mission will constitute another step toward being responsive to high-priority science goals and the president's challenge of sending humans to Mars orbit in the 2030s," the space agency said in a statement.
"The challenge to restructure the Mars Exploration Program has turned from the seven minutes of terror for the Curiosity landing to the start of seven years of innovation," NASA's associate administrator for science, and astronaut John Grunsfeld said. "This mission concept fits within the current and projected Mars exploration budget, builds on the exciting discoveries of Curiosity, and takes advantage of a favorable launch opportunity."
The next rover development and design will be based on the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) architecture that successfully carried the Curiosity rover to the Martian surface this summer. This will ensure mission costs and risks are as low as possible. The mission will constitute a vital component of a broad portfolio of Mars exploration missions in development for the coming decade.
The planned portfolio includes the Curiosity and Opportunity rovers; two NASA spacecraft and contributions to one European spacecraft currently orbiting Mars; the 2013 launch of the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) orbiter to study the Martian upper atmosphere; the Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight) mission, which will take the first look into the deep interior of Mars; and participation in ESA's 2016 and 2018 ExoMars missions, including providing "Electra" telecommunication radios to ESA's 2016 mission and a critical element of the premier astrobiology instrument on the 2018 ExoMars rover.
"With this next mission, we're ensuring America remains the world leader in the exploration of the Red Planet, while taking another significant step toward sending humans there in the 2030s," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said. "The Obama administration is committed to a robust Mars exploration program," he said.
