Date: Mon, 30 Oct 1995 17:06:56 -0500
From: NASANews@luna.osf.hq.nasa.gov (NASA HQ Public Affairs Office)
Message-Id: <9510302206.AA14442@luna.osf.hq.nasa.gov>
To: press-release-edu2@mercury.hq.nasa.gov
Subject: Science Instruments Selected for 1998 Mars Missions
Sender: NASANews@hq.nasa.gov
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Douglas Isbell
Headquarters, Washington, DC October 30, 1995
(Phone: 202/358-1753)
RELEASE: 95-196
SCIENCE INSTRUMENTS SELECTED FOR 1998 MARS MISSIONS
An extremely lightweight camera and a variety of
instruments designed to study daily weather patterns and
the icy south pole on Mars have been selected by NASA
officials to fly aboard an orbiting spacecraft and lander
in late 1998.
Known as the Mars Surveyor '98 Orbiter and the Mars
Surveyor '98 Lander, the robotic missions will enable
detailed scientific studies of the planet's atmosphere,
climate, meteorology and surface volatiles such as water
ice and frozen carbon dioxide. The lander will be the
first mission ever sent to the poles of Mars, where it will
settle on terrain that appears to consist of alternating
layers of clean and dust-laden ice.
"These investigations will collect data that is
fundamental to a better knowledge of the climate of Mars,
both in the past and in the present," said
Dr. Wesley T. Huntress Jr., Associate Administrator for
Space Science at NASA Headquarters. "Landing in a polar
region is particularly interesting and exciting. These
areas probably hold the key to understanding what appear to
be quasi-periodic climate fluctuations on the planet over
thousands or even hundreds of thousands of years, and the
nature of the orbit of Mars makes this our only opportunity
to send a mission to a pole during the next decade."
The orbiter will carry an advanced technology optical
camera called the Mars Surveyor '98 Orbiter Color Camera,
to be provided by Dr. Michael Malin of Malin Space Science
Inc., San Diego. With a total mass of only 2.2 lbs., the
camera system is less than 1/20th the mass of the Mars
Observer Camera spare, also provided by Malin, that will
fly aboard NASA's Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft,
scheduled for launch in November 1996.
The camera consists of two elements: a wide-angle
camera that will acquire daily weather maps of Mars with a
surface resolution of a half mile to up to four and a half
miles, and a medium-angle camera with a resolution of 131
feet that will study alterations in the planet's surface
over time due to changing atmospheric conditions and winds.
The orbiter also will carry an atmospheric instrument
called the Pressure Modulator Infrared Radiometer (PMIRR),
which was selected for flight in July. PMIRR will measure
temperature profiles of the Martian atmosphere and monitor
its water vapor and dust content.
Malin Space Science Inc., will provide another low-
mass camera for the Mars '98 lander, called the Mars
Surveyor '98 Descent Imager. It will produce wide-angle
views of the Martian surface beginning about 10 seconds
after the lander's parachute has been deployed, at
approximately five miles in altitude, until its landing.
These pictures will be used to provide a larger geographic
context for local landforms around the landing zone, and to
help tie together images from the orbiter with the exact
landing site.
Once on the surface, the lander will power up an
integrated science payload to be supplied by Dr. David
Paige of the University of California at Los Angeles.
Known as the Mars Volatile and Climate Surveyor, this
payload achieves a mass of just 37 lbs. through the use of
common electronic components and other shared subsystems.
The payload includes a mast-mounted imager to take
stereo photos of the surrounding landscape; a six-and-a-
half foot robot arm that will dig up and deliver surface
samples to a thermal and evolved gas analyzer to determine
their content of ice and frozen carbon dioxide; and a mast-
mounted meteorological package with sensors to record
atmospheric pressure, temperature and winds. During its
planned 86-day surface mission, the lander's robot arm will
attempt to dig trenches in the icy polar soil and then use
a small arm-mounted camera to transmit close-up pictures of
any stratified layers.
"Like the exposed walls of the Grand Canyon on Earth,
these layers should reveal a fascinating record of gross
fluctuations in the Martian environment, telling us more
about why a planet that appears to have been so wet in the
past is so cold and dry now," said Huntress.
NASA is continuing discussions with the Russian Space
Agency (RSA) about the possibility of Russia supplying a
science instrument for the lander, in addition to hardware
that the RSA is contributing for the PMIRR orbiter
instrument. Options for the lander include a laser-ranging
device that measures atmospheric dust and haze or an
electromagnetic sounder that would map soil density
variations and possible subsurface water. A final decision
on these lander instruments should be made by the end of
November, Huntress said.
The Mars '98 Orbiter and Lander are scheduled for
separate launches aboard Med-Lite expendable launch
vehicles in December 1998 and January 1999, respectively.
The missions are part of NASA's Mars Surveyor program, a
10-year series of cost-capped missions to Mars featuring
two launches every 26 months.
-end-
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