Plans for the 1998 Mars Surveyor mission are still evolving as of July 1995.
Click Here for Diagrams related to Mars Surveyor 98. This section is text only.
Two small spacecraft-- an orbiter and lander-- will be launched in 1998 to help scientists trace the evolution of the planet's climate and search for water in the martian soil. The spacecraft will be built by Lockheed Martin Astronautics of Denver, Colorado.
The pair of spacecraft, currently called the Mars Surveyor 1998 orbiter and lander, continues NASA's efforts to cut costs by building smaller, less expensive planetary spacecraft. The two spacecraft together cost only $92.2 million. The 1998 orbiter will be just one-half the weight of the 1996 Mars Global Surveyor. The 1998 lander, similarly, will be just half the weight of the 1996 Mars Pathfinder, the smallest planetary lander yet constructed.
The new missions will be the second set of spacecraft in NASA's decade-long program of Mars exploration, known as the Mars Surveyor Program. The spacecraft will be launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, during the 1998 Mars launch opportunity, which falls between December 1998 and February 1999.
Science instruments for the 1998 lander will be selected in October 1995. The 1998 orbiter will carry a camera and one of the two remaining science instruments from the former Mars Observer mission that could not be carried on the 1996 Mars Global Surveyor mission. In July 1995, NASA chose the Pressure Modulator Infrared Radiometer (PMIRR) and decided to put the other Mars Observer instrument, Gama Ray Spectrometer (GRS), on a 2001 orbiter.
The new pair of spacecraft will return information that builds upon the goals of the 1996 missions, which seek to answer key questions about Mars's early history. The 1998 missions, however, will take that scientific quest a step further, initiating a search for water in the Martian soil and delving into long standing theories about whether primitive life ever existed early in the planet's history.
During and after its primary science mission, the 1998 Mars Surveyor orbiter also will serve as a data relay satellite for the companion lander and for future NASA and international lander missions to Mars.
NASA selected the PMIRR for the 1998 orbiter during July 1995. Other instruments for the orbiter and lander will be selected in October 1995.
PMIRR will produce a vertical picture of the tenuous martian atmosphere by measuring a profile of the infrared radiation reflected from the horizon of the planet. These data can be used to derive other atmospheric components such as temperature, water vapor levels and dust content, from the Martian surface level through altitudes as high as 80 km. Such information helps produce more accurate global models of the Martian environment, a necessary precursor for future robotic and human exploration missions. The principal investigator for PMIRR is Dr. Daniel McCleese of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA.