WILLIAMSBURG, Va., (NASA) – Just before the close of the Third International Workshop on The Mars Atmosphere on Thursday, Michael Meyer spoke on the future of NASA missions to Mars but also briefly on the Phoenix Lander.
The rundown of Phoenix’s discoveries painted a compelling on-the-ground picture that served as a reminder of the most pressing questions scientists still have about the planet.
Phoenix found ice just below the surface, right at the depths predicted by the Mars Odyssey orbiter. Phoenix saw winds kick up red dust devils, while morning gusts of up to 9 mph (14.5 kph) rattled the lander’s solar panels. Snow flurries whipped through the air but didn’t reach the surface. And finally, earlier this week, Phoenix’s solar-powered life gave way to diminishing light and harsh weather as the Mars winter set in.
The conditions sound at once remarkably different and similar to Earth, and they point to the overarching questions about Mars: Was there ever — or is there still — potential for life on the planet? What forces characterized its past climate and shape its atmosphere and geology today? What do we need to know to support human missions to Mars?
Meyer, lead scientist for Mars exploration at NASA Headquarters, outlined those questions as the guiding forces for Mars exploration architecture, and he updated the audience on the status of NASA’s latest plans.
NASA officials will decide in January if the planned September 2009 launch of the Mars Science Laboratory remains feasible or if the launch will have to be moved back 26 months, Meyer said.
The rover, overseen by Jet Propulsion Laboratory, is designed to seek clues about Mars’ history of habitability for microbial life.
The Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution Mission (MAVEN) satellite, planned for 2013, is the next major orbiter designed to study the Martian atmosphere. NASA wants to send another rover in 2016 that is tentatively called Mars Prospector.
“What we do beyond that is in fact very open,” Meyer said.
He said that it’s important to look toward a major next step in Mars exploration: A mission that is able to return samples from the surface to Earth for analysis.
“Sample return should be a very big part of the program,” Meyer said.
Bruce Jakosky, University of Colorado professor and principal investigator for MAVEN, described how the 2013 mission could shed light on the history of Mars’ atmosphere. NASA chose MAVEN two months ago as the next Mars Scout Program mission. Scout selects Mars missions by inviting proposals from the scientific community.
“It’s really a pleasure to be able to talk about MAVEN after four years of secrecy,” Jakosky said. The goals of the mission include determining if and how Mars underwent dramatic climate change.
If Mars once had a thicker, warmer atmosphere that could support surface water, what happened to it? “If we had a thick, early CO2 atmosphere, where did the CO2 go?” Jakosky said.
More than 130 scientists from 11 countries attended the workshop, which was co-chaired by NASA Langley scientist Joel S. Levine and Francois Forget, of Laboratoire de Meteorologie Dynamique in France. It was sponsored by NASA’s Mars Exploration Program, the Mars Project Office at JPL, the Lunar and Planetary Inistitute and CNES, the French space agency.
Four NASA Langley researchers presented papers: Levine, Walt Engelund, Prasun Desai and Alicia Cianciolo.
This was the first time the workshop was held in the U.S., and Forget said the fourth, likely in a couple years, will probably be back in Europe.
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