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Science Team Outlines Goals for NASA's 2020 Mars Rover

Artist's Concept of Mars 2020 Rover

Planning for NASA's 2020 Mars rover envisions a basic structure that capitalizes on the design and engineering work done for the NASA rover Curiosity, which landed on Mars in 2012, but with new science instruments selected through competition for accomplishing different science objectives. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
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The Importance of Nested Scales of Observations, Large Scales

Observations at large scales, such as panoramas of Martian landscapes, help researchers identify smaller-scale features of special interest for examination in more detail. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
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The Importance of Nested Scales of Observations, Fine Scales

These two images illustrate the value of being able to identify different compositions at very small scales. Left image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL/CNES/IRAP/LPGNantes/CNRS/LGLyon/Planet-Terre Right image credit: M. Fries
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Creating a Returnable Cache of Martian Samples

This shows one prototype for hardware to cache samples of cores drilled from Martian rocks for possible future return to Earth. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

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Scientific Process for Detecting Past Mars Life

Seeking signs of past life on Mars would be a multi-step process, according to the Science Definition Team for NASA's Mars 2020 mission. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
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July 09, 2013

WASHINGTON -- The rover NASA will send to Mars in 2020 should look for signs of past life, collect samples for possible future return to Earth, and demonstrate technology for future human exploration of the Red Planet, according to a report provided to the agency.

The 154-page document was prepared by the Mars 2020 Science Definition Team, which NASA appointed in January to outline scientific objectives for the mission. The team, composed of 19 scientists and engineers from universities and research organizations, proposed a mission concept that could accomplish several high-priority planetary science goals and be a major step in meeting President Obama's challenge to send humans to Mars in the 2030s.

"Crafting the science and exploration goals is a crucial milestone in preparing for our next major Mars mission," said John Grunsfeld, NASA's associate administrator for science in Washington. "The objectives determined by NASA with the input from this team will become the basis later this year for soliciting proposals to provide instruments to be part of the science payload on this exciting step in Mars exploration."

NASA will conduct an open competition for the payload and science instruments. They will be placed on a rover similar to Curiosity, which landed on Mars almost a year ago. Using Curiosity's design will help minimize mission costs and risks and deliver a rover that can accomplish the mission objectives.

The 2020 mission proposed by the Science Definition Team would build upon the accomplishments of Curiosity and other Mars missions. The Spirit and Opportunity rovers, along with several orbiters, found evidence Mars has a watery history. Curiosity recently confirmed that past environmental conditions on Mars could have supported living microbes. According to the Science Definition Team, looking for signs of past life is the next logical step.

The team's report details how the rover would use its instruments for visual, mineralogical and chemical analysis down to microscopic scale to understand the environment around its landing site and identify biosignatures, or features in the rocks and soil that could have been formed biologically.

"The Mars 2020 mission concept does not presume that life ever existed on Mars," said Jack Mustard, chairman of the Science Definition Team and a professor at the Geological Sciences at Brown University in Providence, R.I. "However, given the recent Curiosity findings, past Martian life seems possible, and we should begin the difficult endeavor of seeking the signs of life. No matter what we learn, we would make significant progress in understanding the circumstances of early life existing on Earth and the possibilities of extraterrestrial life."

The measurements needed to explore a site on Mars to interpret ancient habitability and the potential for preserved biosignatures are identical to those needed to select and cache samples for future return to Earth. The Science Definition Team is proposing the rover collect and package as many as 31 samples of rock cores and soil for a later mission to bring back for more definitive analysis in laboratories on Earth. The science conducted by the rover's instruments would expand our knowledge of Mars and provide the context needed to make wise decisions about whether to return the samples to Earth.

"The Mars 2020 mission will provide a unique capability to address the major questions of habitability and life in the solar system," said Jim Green, director of NASA's Planetary Science Division in Washington. "This mission represents a major step towards creating high-value sampling and interrogation methods, as part of a broader strategy for sample returns by planetary missions."

Samples collected and analyzed by the rover will help inform future human exploration missions to Mars. The rover could make measurements and technology demonstrations to help designers of a human expedition understand any hazards posed by Martian dust and demonstrate how to collect carbon dioxide, which could be a resource for making oxygen and rocket fuel. Improved precision landing technology that enhances the scientific value of robotic missions also will be critical for eventual human exploration on the surface.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, manages NASA's Mars Exploration Program for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington.

The complete Science Definition Team report is available online at: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/m2020/ .

For more information about NASA's Mars programs, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/mars .

Dwayne Brown 202-358-1726
NASA Headquarters, Washington
dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov

Guy Webster 818-354-6278
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
guy.webster@jpl.nasa.gov

2013-217

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2020 Mars rover to search for evidence of past life

07/09/2013 05:35 PM 

By WILLIAM HARWOOD
CBS News

A team of scientists studying possible mission scenarios for a planned 2020 Mars mission modeled on NASA's Curiosity rover has recommended a spacecraft equipped with instruments designed to look for traces of past life in the red planet's frigid crust, agency managers said Tuesday.

The as-yet-unnamed Mars 2020 rover, expected to cost nearly $2 billion when launch costs are included, also would test technologies for collecting and caching core samples that could be returned by a future robotic mission for detailed analysis on Earth.

NASA's planned 2020 Mars rover, based on the successful Curiosity design, will be equipped with instruments designed to look for traces of past life in once habitable environments. (Credit: NASA)

NASA unveiled initial plans for the Mars 2020 rover in December 2012 and the following January, a Science Definition Team made up of leading planetary scientists and engineers began studying possible mission designs based on four basic requirements.

"The first objective was to explore an astrobiologically relevant ancient environment on Mars to decipher the geologic processes and history, including its past habitability," said Jack Mustard, chairman of the committee and professor of geological sciences at Brown University.

"The second key objective was to assess the biosignature preservation potential within the selected geologic environment and search for potential biosignatures," or traces of past life.

The third objective "was to demonstrate significant technical progress towards the future return of scientifically selected, well-documented samples to Earth," Mustard said. The fourth goal was to provide a testbed for human spaceflight technologies.

"We are recommending a mission concept for a science-focused, highly-mobile rover to explore and investigate in detail a site on Mars that likely was once habitable," Mustard said. "Our preferred mission concept employs new, in situ science instrumentation in order to seek these signs of past life had it been there.

"We're not looking for the life that must have been there, because we don't know the answer to that question. But we're saying given as many signs as we've had, including what Curiosity is finding, that there is promise that had life been there, it had left a mark in the geologic record."

The new rover will be based on Curiosity's general design and the "sky crane" landing technology that successfully lowered the heavy rover to the surface from a rocket-powered backpack.

But one key difference involves the new rover's drilling system. Curiosity is equipped with an impact drill designed to bore into rocks to collect powdered samples for detailed chemical analysis. The new rover likely will be equipped with a drill system that will collect core samples that could be placed in a cache for possible return to Earth.

No such sample return mission is currently on the books and it's not clear when such a mission might be launched. But perfecting the technology is considered a key step toward one day getting samples back to Earth for detailed laboratory analysis.

This prototype shows one possible design for a Mars sample cache that could be left on the surface, loaded with small core samples, to await a future mission to carry them back to Earth for detailed analysis. (Credit: NASA)

In recent Mars missions, NASA has studiously avoided talking about direct searches for past or present life. Instead, the agency has focused on a "follow the water" strategy aimed at determining whether Mars ever hosted environments habitable to life as it is known on Earth.

That answer to that question now seems clear, scientists say. Habitable environments did, in fact, exist on Mars, but it's not yet clear when they were present or whether they lasted long enough for life to evolve.

The Mars 2020 rover will be equipped with state-of-the-art instruments to look for signs of past life in a yet-to-be-selected location where scientists see clear evidence of past habitability. But the rover will not be looking for signs of existing life.

"To go and look for simple organisms or not-so-simple organisms that are living within that toxic, harsh environment, we just think it's a foolish investment of the technology at this time," Mustard said.

But given past habitable environments, any life that did exist may have left detectable remains, or traces, across vast stretches of time that would be easier to find.

"To the best evidence that a good segment of the planetary science community understands, that period of time on Mars was in its ancient past when habitable environments were common and have left a number of records we can see from orbit," Mustard said. "We would like to sample those to see if it left biosignatures.

"If that biosignature happens to be a dinosaur-type bone, we probably wouldn't need to return that sample, we would recognize that with our current capabilities," he joked. "But our understanding is that it's likely to be microbial, and that's a darn hard measurement to make, and a darn hard measurement to convince the skeptical science community that that is indeed the case."

The Science Definition Team included members who pushed for instruments to look for currently existing life, "but the feeling was, on the basis of the scientific evidence we have to date, the most logical steps were to look for the ancient signs of life that would be preserved in the rock record," Mustard said.

Lindy Elkins-Tanton, director of the Carnegie Institution's Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, said it was a matter of maximizing the potential science return.

"If we were only looking for what microbes could be found on the surface in this place right now, that's like a tiny snapshot of the history of Mars and the possibility of life," she said. "But if we look back through the rock record, we're basically integrating over time and maximizing our chances of finding results."

NASA managers now will evaluate the Science Definition Team's report before asking the science community to submit proposals for scientific instruments.

"Here's the bottom line," said Elkins-Tanton. "Questions drive science. When it comes to NASA and the community together planning a flagship mission, the time, the commitment and the support needed, we should only be seeking to answer the very biggest questions.

"And one of the very biggest questions for all of humankind is are we alone? And that is the question we're hoping to make really big advances with this Mars 2020 mission."

© 2011 William Harwood/CBS News 

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AmericaSpace

For a nation that explores
July 9th, 2013

NASA's 2020 Mars Rover Begins to Take Shape

By Jason Rhian

 

NASA image of proposed 2020 Mars rover.

NASA detailed its plans for the next robotic mission to Mars on Tuesday, July 9 during a conference held in Washington, D.C. This mission will use a robot similar to the successful Mars Science Laboratory rover Curiosity which touched down on the surface of Mars almost one year ago. Key members of the team that began developing the Mars 2020 rover spoke about the aspirations and restrictions associated with the mission.

"We began this process on January 24, and over the past five and a half months I don't think I've ever seen so many emails issued in such a condensed format. I feel our recommendations cover not only the requirements placed by NASA, but also a large part of the National Academy of Sciences Decadal Survey Report for Planetary Exploration that was released recently," said Jack Mustard SDT chair and professor of geological sciences. "We were very aware of constraints, both scientific as well as fiscal, that we had to work within."

Many representatives of the Science Definition Team, or "SDT," detailed the next steps that the project will take. The team of 19 scientists and engineers come from a variety of organizations as well as academia. NASA appointed the SDT last January with the task of developing the new Mars rover mission. As with most follow-on missions, the 2020 rover will work to further research initiated by MSL. It is hoped that it will also conduct something long planned by managers at NASA.

One of the key aspects that was brought up during Tuesday's teleconference was the possibility of Martian samples to be brought back to Earth for study. Photo Credit: NASA / JPL – Caltech

The Mars 2020 rover will collect samples which could determine if Mars either supported microbial life in its past or if it supports microbial life at present. While the pages of this mission are currently blank, interest in having samples returned back to Earth are of great interest. It was unclear, however, how or when the samples might be brought back. One high-profile member of the team detailed how these samples might find their way to terrestrial laboratories.

"The samples that this rover collects might be picked up by astronauts that journey to Mars on a future manned flight," said John Grunsfeld, NASA's associate administrator for science.

The SDT produced a 154-page document which helps to begin to guide where the rover will go as it is developed. The objectives of this new mission have not yet been identified and are still being considered. For their part, the SDT had four key guides which directed them. They were: to explore an astrobiologically relevant ancient environment on Mars to decipher the geologic processes in history, including the planet's past habitability; to assess the bio-signature preservation potential on the Red Planet, demonstrate significant technical progress toward returning scientific samples to Earth; and to develop a compatible program so as to be useful to NASA's plans to send astronauts to the surface of Mars.

"The Mars 2020 mission concept does not presume that life ever existed on Mars," Mustard said. "However, given the recent Curiosity findings, past Martian life seems possible, and we should begin the difficult endeavor of seeking the signs of life. No matter what we learn, we would make significant progress in understanding the circumstances of early life existing on Earth and the possibilities of extraterrestrial life."

With each successive mission, NASA is learning more and more about the Martian terrain and how to conduct missions on the surface of the Red Planet. Image Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS

The next step, one which the SDT hopes to have started by this fall, will be a competitively selected announcement of opportunity for payload and instruments which the rover will use. This rover, while similar to MSL and using leftover components from that mission, will be different in a number of ways.

"Crafting the science and exploration goals is a crucial milestone in preparing for our next major Mars mission," Grunsfeld stated in a release issued by NASA. "The objectives determined by NASA with the input from this team will become the basis later this year for soliciting proposals to provide instruments to be part of the science payload on this exciting step in Mars exploration."

The team was tasked with completing a number of objectives that will aid in completing President Obama's goal of sending astronauts to Mars in the 2030s. 

 

Copyright © 2013 AmericaSpace - All Rights Reserved

 

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NASA's Next Mars Rover Will Search for Signs of Life

By Mike Wall, Senior Writer

09 July 2013 Time: 03:26 PM ET

 

 

A sketch of the design for NASA's 2020 Mars rover. Planning for NASA's 2020 Mars rover envisions a basic structure that capitalizes on re-using the design and engineering work done for the NASA rover Curiosity, which landed on Mars in 2012, but with new science instruments selected through competition for accomplishing different science objectives with the 2020 mission. CREDIT: NASA/JPL-Caltech View full size image

NASA's next Mars rover should hunt for signs of past Red Planet life and collect samples for eventual return to Earth, a team of mission planners has determined.

The new Mars rover — slated to launch in 2020 — should explore a site that once was habitable, make its own observations and snag material for scientists here on Earth to study in unprecedented detail at some point in the future, according to a new report compiled by the mission's "science definition team" (SDT).

"The SDT-preferred mission concept employs new in situ scientific instrumentation in order to seek signs of past life (had it been there), select and store a compelling suite of samples in a returnable cache and demonstrate technology for future robotic and human exploration of Mars," states the report, which was released to the public today (July 9). [NASA's 2020 Mars Rover (Images)]

The 2020 Mars rover will be based heavily on NASA's Curiosity rover, which touched down last August on a mission to determine if Mars could ever have supported microbial life.

For example, the new robot will use a similar chassis and "sky crane" landing system, NASA officials have said. But the 2020 rover will take the science to a whole new level.

"The 2020 rover as proposed by the Science Definition Team would carry a different and more advanced set of science instruments than Curiosity carries, its drill would extract cores rather than blended powder from rocks and it would collect and package samples for possible future return to Earth," NASA officials wrote today in an FAQ about the SDT's report.

Just what those instruments will be is unclear at the moment; they will be selected through a competitive process. But the science gear will search for visual, mineralogical and chemical signs of past life if the SDT recommendations are adopted.

"The capability for examining the mineralogic composition of samples at microscopic scale would be unprecedented for a mission to Mars," NASA officials wrote in the FAQ. "The search for potential signs of past life could use assessments of textures, shapes, mineralogy, organic-matter content, and possibly elemental chemistry at the scale of individual grains within a sample."

The rover would also gather and store samples for potential return to Earth by a future mission (the timing and details of which are yet to be determined). Sample-return is viewed by most scientists as the best way to look for signs of Red Planet life.

The new rover's landing site has not been selected yet, officials said, and its power source similarly has not been confirmed.

Curiosity is powered by a radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG), which converts the heat generated by radioactive decay into electricity. The 2020 rover may follow suit, but it's also possible that it could run on solar power, like NASA's smaller Spirit and Opportunity rovers, which landed on Mars in 2004.

"No final decision on a power source for the 2020 rover would be made until the mission completes a review through the National Environmental Policy Act process, which considers the environmental impacts of launching and conducting the mission," NASA officials wrote in the FAQ.

Curiosity's mission cost a total of $2.5 billion. The 2020 rover is expected to be significantly cheaper, with a total price tag estimated at around $1.5 billion.

The new 2020 rover mission was announced this past December, and the SDT was formed in January. 

 

Copyright © 2013 TechMediaNetwork.com All rights reserved.

 

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      Jul. 9, 2013 10:18 PM

NASA: 2020's rover mission is crucial

Mars craft must seek life, scout for humans

What is NASA looking for on Mars?: NASA offers an easy explanation on how finding organic matter in rocks could lead to finding life on the red planet.

Written by
Todd Halvorson
FLORIDA TODAY

 

Zoom

NASA restructured its own Mars program in 2011 and 2012 after stepping away from European missions for 2016 and 2018. / AP

A lot of work

ISS team of astronauts breezed through their spacewalk work, 3A

CAPE CANAVERAL — NASA's Mars 2020 rover should search for signs of life and develop technology for human exploration of the planet, a report released Tuesday said.

The cost of the spacecraft should be kept within $1.5 billion, and the rover should cache samples for a return to Earth at a date still to be determined, a science advisory committee said.

When would that be?

"The 2020s is probably very ambitious. But we're very ambitious here," said former astronaut John Grunsfeld, who now is chief of NASA's Science Mission Directorate.

However, given the fiscal and technical challenges involved, Grunsfeld acknowledged that returning samples to Earth might take much longer.

"This is John Grunsfeld, the astronaut, speaking. But I wouldn't rule out that perhaps human explorers will go and retrieve the cache in, you know, 20-plus years from now, as explorers set foot on Mars" he added.

Faced with budget shortfalls that forced NASA to largely bail out of European Mars missions in 2016 and 2018, NASA restructured its own Mars program in 2011 and 2012.

NASA's Mars 2020 rover mission is the result of the restructuring. The agency earlier this year enlisted a Science Definition Team to outline goals for the mission.

Among chief goals:

• Explore an ancient Mars environment that almost certainly is, or once was, habitable – a place that might harbor past or present life.

• Analyze the selected landing site for its potential to preserve scientific evidence of past or present life, and search for those "biosignatures."

• Assemble a cache of "scientifically selected, well-documented samples packaged in a way that the cache could be returned to Earth."

• Help pave the way to a human expedition to Mars.

Jim Green, director of NASA's planetary sciences division, said the group's work would lead to an announcement of opportunity this fall. Scientists will propose instruments for the mission. NASA will evaluate the proposals and make selections.

The outline of science objectives comes at a time when NASA's Mars Program budget is in a freefall.

The $8 billion James Webb Space Telescope development project is eating up funds. Those costs, in part, led to a 40 percent decline in the Mars Program budget for the fiscal year that ends Sept. 30.

This November, NASA plans to launch a previously scheduled Martian orbiter to study the planet's disappearing atmosphere. NASA last year also added a low-cost stationary lander for launch in 2016.

Budget cuts prompted NASA to cost-cap the Mars 2020 mission at $1.5 billion, excluding launch costs. The car-sized rover will be built with a chassis designed for the Curiosity rover. The spacecraft will use the "Sky Crane" landing scheme which was first used on the $2.5 billion Curiosity mission.

Grunsfeld and Green said the Mars 2020 rover represents a key next step in the exploration of Mars.

Lindy Elkins-Tanton, director of the Carnegie Institutions Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, said the mission could lead to important discoveries.

"Here's the bottom line: Questions drive science," she said. "And one of the very biggest questions for all of humankind is, 'Are we alone?' And that is the question we're hoping to make really big advances on with this Mars 2020 mission."

Contact Halvorson at thalvorson@floridatoday.com

 

Copyright © 2013 www.floridatoday.com. All rights reserved. 

 

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Why NASA's Next Mars Rover Won't Seek Current Life

By Mike Wall, Senior Writer

10 July 2013 Time: 07:00 AM ET

 

 

A sketch of the design for NASA's 2020 Mars rover. Planning for NASA's 2020 Mars rover envisions a basic structure that capitalizes on re-using the design and engineering work done for the NASA rover Curiosity, which landed on Mars in 2012, but with new science instruments selected through competition for accomplishing different science objectives with the 2020 mission. CREDIT: NASA/JPL-Caltech View full size image

Some people may be disappointed that NASA's next Mars rover won't conduct a life-detection experiment, but hunting for currently existing Red Planet microbes is decidedly premature at this point, mission planners say.

NASA officials announced Tuesday (July 9) that the agency's new Mars rover, which is slated to launch in 2020, will hunt for evidence of past life and collect samples for eventual return to Earth. The scientists who drew up goals for the mission considered recommending life-detection gear, which NASA's twin Viking landers carried in the 1970s, but the planners ultimately decided against it.

"To date, the evidence that we have from observations of Mars and Martian samples is that we don't have the clear indication that life is at such an abundance on the planet that we could go there with a simple experiment like Viking [had] and detect that [life] there," Brown University professor Jack Mustard, chairman of the 2020 rover mission's Science Definition Team (SDT), told reporters Tuesday. [NASA's 2020 Mars Rover (Images)]

"To go and look for simple organisms, or not-so-simple organisms, that are living within that toxic, harsh environment we just think is a foolish investment of the technology at this time," Mustard added.

This shows one prototype for hardware to cache samples of cores drilled from Martian rocks for possible future return to Earth. A major objective for NASA's Mars 2020 rover, as described by the Mars 2020 Science Definition Team, would be to collect and package a carefully selected set of up to 31 samples in a cache that could be returned to Earth by a later mission. For scale, the diameter of the core sample shown in the image is 0.4 inch (1 centimeter).
CREDIT: NASA/JPL-Caltech

View full size image

It makes more sense right now to look for signs of past life, scientists said, for Mars was much warmer and wetter in the ancient past than it is today. Indeed, observations by NASA's Curiosity rover led scientists to announce this past March that the Red Planet could have supported microbial life billions of years ago.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"It's not just the instrumentation and the basis of the science, but it's also a matter of maximizing potential return," said SDT member Lindy Elkins-Tanton, director of the Carnegie Institution for Science's Department of Terrestrial Magnetism.

"If we were only looking for what microbes could be found on the surface in this place right now, that's like a tiny snapshot of the history of Mars and the possibility of life," Elkins-Tanton added. "But if we look back through the rock record, we're basically integrating over time and maximizing our chances of finding results."

NASA announced the 2020 Mars rover mission this past December, and the agency formed the SDT a month later. The rover will bear a strong resemblance to the car-sized, six-wheeled Curiosity, featuring the same chassis and employing the same "sky crane" landing system that delivered Curiosity to the Martian surface last August.

Curiosity is powered by a radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG), which converts the heat produced by the radioactive decay of plutonium-238 into electricity. The 2020 rover may utilize the same power system, but it may also rely on solar panels, NASA officials said.

It's also unclear where the 2020 rover will land and what instruments it will carry. NASA plans to put out a call for instrument proposals a few months from now, officials said, and the agency will select a landing site much further down the road, after extensive input from the scientific community.

Most scientists regard Mars sample return as the best way to search for signs of Martian life, so the SDT recommended that the 2020 Mars rover collect and cache particularly promising material. But there is no timeline at the moment for bringing these samples to Earth for study.

"At this point, we haven't gone in the forward planning — the next 10, 20 years or so — to show how we would then acquire that cache and return it to Earth, although we've done a number of studies in that direction," said NASA science chief John Grunsfeld. "That's all forward work."

No surface mission has undertaken a dedicated Mars life hunt since the twin Viking landers ceased operations more than 30 years ago. Viking's biological experiments returned intriguing but ambiguous results that scientists are still interpreting and debating today.

To see the entire 160-page Mars Rover 2020 Science Definition Team report visit: http://mars.nasa.gov/files/m2020/SDT_July2013.zip

 

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