How do we make rovers better geologists at Mars?
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
rover autonomy data analysis machine learning↗
SEARCH · Engineering Papers
Results for “Mars Rovers”
Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.
Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.
Lessons Learned from Coordinating Relay Activities at Mars
The Mission Management Office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory was tasked with coordinating the relay of data between multiple spacecraft at Mars in support of the Mars Exploration Rover Missions in early 2004. The confluence of three orbiters (Mars Global Surveyor, Mars Odyssey, and Mars Express), two rovers (Spirit and Opportunity), and one lander (Beagle 2) has provided a challenging operational scenario that required careful coordination between missions to provide the necessary support and to avoid potential interference during simultaneous relay sessions. As these coordination efforts progressed, several important lessons were learned that should be applied to future Mars relay activities.
coordination↗
The Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin) X-Ray Diffractometer on the MSL Curiosity Rover: A Decade of Mineralogy From Gale Crater, Mars
For more than a decade, the CheMin X-ray diffraction instrument on the Mars Science Laboratory rover Curiosity has been returning definitive and quantitative mineralogical and mineral-chemistry data from ~3.5-billion-year-old (Ga) sediments in Gale crater, Mars. To date, 40 drilled rock samples and 3 scooped soil samples have been analyzed during the rover’s 30+ km transit. These samples document the mineralogy of over 800 meters of flat-lying fluvial, lacustrine and aeolian sedimentary rocks that comprise the lower strata of the central mound of Gale crater (Aeolis Mons; informally known as Mt. Sharp) and the surrounding plains (Aeolis Palus, informally known as the Bradbury Rise). The principal mineralogy of the sedimentary rocks is basaltic, with evidence of early and late-stage diagenetic overprinting. The rocks in many cases preserve much of their primary mineralogy and sedimentary features, suggesting that they were never strongly heated or deformed. Using aeolian soil composition as a proxy for the composition of the deposited and lithified sediment, it appears that in many cases diagenetic changes observed are principally isochemical. Exceptions to this trend include secondary nodules, calcium sulfate veining, and rare Si-rich alteration halos. A surprising and yet poorly understood observation is that nearly all the ~3.5 Ga sedimentary rocks analyzed to date contain 15-70 wt.% of X-ray amorphous material. Over-all, this >800-meter section of sedimentary rock explored in lower Mt. Sharp documents a perennial shallow lake environment grading upward into alternating lacustrine/fluvial and aeolian environments, many of which would have been habitable to microbial life.
Mars↗
Non-Detection of Methane in the Mars Atmosphere by the Curiosity Rover
By analogy with Earth, methane in the atmosphere of Mars is a potential signature of ongoing or past biological activity on the planet. During the last decade, Earth-based telescopic and Mars orbit remote sensing instruments have reported significant abundances of methane in the Martian atmosphere ranging from several to tens of parts-per-billion by volume (ppbv). Observations from Earth showed plumes of methane with variations on timescales much faster than expected and inconsistent with localized patches seen from orbit, prompting speculation of sources from sub-surface methanogen bacteria, geological water-rock reactions or infall from comets, micro-meteorites or interplanetary dust. From measurements on NASAs Curiosity Rover that landed near Gale Crater on 5th August 2012, we here report no definitive detection of methane in the near-surface Martian atmosphere. Our in situ measurements were made using the Tunable Laser Spectrometer (TLS) in the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument suite6 that made three separate searches on Martian sols 79, 81 and 106 after landing. The measured mean value of 0.39 plus or minus 1.4 ppbv corresponds to an upper limit for methane abundance of 2.7 ppbv at the 95 confidence level. This result is in disagreement with both the remote sensing spacecraft observations taken at lower sensitivity and the telescopic observations that relied on subtraction of a very large contribution from terrestrial methane in the intervening observation path. Since the expected lifetime of methane in the Martian atmosphere is hundreds of years, our results question earlier observations and set a low upper limit on the present day abundance, reducing the probability of significant current methanogenic microbial activity on Mars.
Curiosity Rover↗
Bringing a Chemical Laboratory Named Sam to Mars on the 2011 Curiosity Rover
An important goal of upcoming missions to Mars is to understand if life could have developed there. The task of the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) suite of instruments [1] and the other Curiosity investigations [2] is to move us steadily toward that goal with an assessment of the habitability of our neighboring planet through a series of chemical and geological measurements. SAM is designed to search for organic compounds and inorganic volatiles and measure isotope ratios. Other instruments on Curiosity will provide elemental analysis and identify minerals. SAM will analyze both atmospheric samples and gases evolved from powdered rocks that may have formed billions of years ago with Curiosity providing access to interesting sites scouted by orbiting cameras and spectrometers.
Mahaffy, P. R.↗
An Overview of SHERLOC Raman and Fluorescence Spectroscopy Results Obtained During Perseverance’s Green Zone Campaign at Jezero Crater, Mars
The Perseverance rover landed in Jezero crater, Mars, in February 2021. The field site was chosen because orbiter data provided evidence that the crater hosted an ancient (>2.7 Ga) fluvio-lacustrine environment. The Octavia E. Butler landing site is located ~1.9 km east of the erosional remnant of the Jezero river delta. Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman and Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals (SHERLOC) is an arm-mounted instrument that combines fluorescence and Raman spectroscopy with microscopic imaging to analyze geological materials in order to better understand the history of the environments recorded in the rocks within Jezero crater and to search for potential biosignatures. SHERLOC has two microscopic cameras, the Autofocus and Context Imager (ACI) and the Wide-Angle Topographic Sensor for Operations and eNgineering, (WATSON). These subsystems obtain high spatial resolution (10.1–100 µm/pixel) images to identify grain-scale structure and texture. SHERLOC spectroscopy enables high-sensitivity detection, characterization, and spatially-resolved correlation of trace organic materials. SHERLOC’s 248.6 nm deep UV laser generates a 100 µm-diameter spot. Photons generated by Raman scattering and fluorescence emission are collected and the spectra are downlinked to Earth for analysis. Knowledge of where the laser is pointed allows for mineral and compositional maps to be generated and overlain in ACI and WATSON images. Early spectroscopy observations focused on natural rock surfaces at targets named Nataani (sol 83), Bi_la_sana (sol 98) and Foux (sol 141). These surfaces included patches of aeolian dust that had settled upon the rocks. Perseverance’s abrasion tool is expected to become available in August 2021; it will grind to depths of 14 mm to remove dust and penetrate coatings and weathering rinds. This presentation will summarize major results from analysis of the rocks examined by SHERLOC during Perseverance’s first science and sample coring campaign (Green Zone Campaign).
Luther W Beegle↗
Stowable Energy-Absorbing Rocker-Bogie Suspensions
A report discusses the design of the rocker-bogie suspensions of the Mars Exploration Rover vehicles, which were landed on Mars in January 2004. Going beyond the basic requirements regarding mobility on uneven terrain, the design had to satisfy requirements (1) to enable each suspension to contort so that the rover could be stowed within limited space in a tetrahedral lander prior to deployment and (2) that the suspension be able to absorb appreciable impact loads, with limited deflection, during egress from the lander and traversal of terrain. For stowability, six joints (three on the right, three on the left) were added to the basic rocker-bogie mechanism. One of the joints on each side was a yoke-and-clevis joint at the suspension/differential interface, one was a motorized twist joint in the forward portion of the rocker, and one was a linear joint created by modifying a fixed-length bogie member into a telescoping member. For absorption of impact, the structural members were in the form of box beams made by electron-beam welding of machined, thin-walled, C-channel, titanium components. The box beams were very lightweight and could withstand high bending and torsional loads.
Harrington, Brian↗
Automating Surface Attitude Positioning and Pointing Operations for Mars 2020
The Surface Attitude Positioning and Pointing (SAPP) subsystem of the Mars Perseverance rover keeps track of the rover’s position and attitude on the surface of Mars. The SAPP Downlink Engineering Operations team members receive data from the rover on a daily basis. They must interpret the data to make sure the rover is staying safe and to support uplink planning. The SAPP team keeps track of the error growth in the rover’s attitude estimate due to noise in the Rover Inertial Measurement Unit’s (RIMU) gyroscopes used to propagate that attitude estimate whenever the rover is moving. Whenever this error grows to a particular threshold, SAPP is responsible for updating the onboard attitude knowledge using the RIMU’s accelerometers to estimate rover roll and pitch and sun imaging to estimate rover yaw, thereby reducing this attitude estimation error. Accurate attitude estimation is required so that the rover can successfully point its High Gain Antenna (HGA) to receive information from Earth and as a backup to the Mars orbiters used for sending data from the rover to Earth, point instruments on its Remote Sensing Mast (RSM), and support safe movement and placement of instruments by the rover’s ARM relative to the Martian surface. The Mars 2020 Engineering Operations team has been working to increase the operational efficiency of the mission and eventually move to a five-hour timeline for daily operations. In pursuit of this goal, the SAPP Engineering Operations team has automated their downlink process by developing a centralized Jupyter notebook to analyze the data received daily from the rover. The SAPP downlink Jupyter notebook automatically collects the data relevant to the SAPP subsystem and visualizes this information in plots and tables that can be easily read by downlink operators to aid them in assessing the status of the subsystem. Various Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) have been incorporated into the downlink daily notebook to automate the collection and posting of data, such as gathering and posting data products to the cloud. The SAPP team has also developed a SAPP downlink software library that includes functions to aid the notebook in processing data. In addition to assessing the SAPP subsystem on a daily basis, operators need to assess the long-term trending behavior of the subsystem over time. An automated trending process has been developed to collect information from the daily notebooks in order to plot and analyze that data in a centralized place. These daily and trending processes have expedited the SAPP downlink assessment and laid the groundwork to completely automate the SAPP downlink process so that SAPP operators are unnecessary unless something unexpected occurs. This paper will provide an overview of the functions that the SAPP subsystem carries out on a daily basis, and will then dive into the automations that have been developed for daily and trending downlink assessment. An assessment of the downlink efficiency will be provided, along with a summary of lessons learned and work to go. Finally, the authors will discuss how these types of automated spacecraft health assessments could be more broadly used within mission operations.
Zarifian, Anais↗
Constraint Maintenance with Preferences and Underlying Flexible Solution
This paper describes an aspect of the constraint reasoning mechanism. that is part of a ground planning system slated to be used for the Mars Exploration Rovers mission, where two rovers are scheduled to land on Mars in January of 2003. The planning system combines manual planning software from JPL with an automatic planning/scheduling system from NASA Ames Research Center, and is designed to be used in a mixed-initiative mode. Among other things, this means that after a plan has been produced, the human operator can perform extensive modifications under the supervision of the automated. system. For each modification to an activity, the automated system must adjust other activities as needed to ensure that constraints continue to be satisfied. Thus, the system must accommodate change in an interactive setting. Performance is of critical importance for interactive use. This is achieved by maintaining an underlying flexible solution to the temporal constraints, while the system presents a fixed schedule to the user. Adjustments are then a matter of constraint propagation rather than completely re-solving the problem. However, this begs the important question of which fixed schedule (among the ones sanctioned by the underlying flexible solution) should be presented to the user.Our approach uses least-change and other preferences as a prism through which the user views the flexible solution.
Bresina, John↗
Lunar and Planetary Science XXXV: Meteorites to and from the Moon and Mars: My Planet or Yours?
The titles in this section include: 1) Meteorites from Mars - Constraints from Numerical Modeling; 2) Iron Oxidation Products in Martian Ordinary Chondrite Finds as Possible Indicators of Liquid Water Exposure at Mars Exploration Rover Landings Sites; 3) Meteorites on Mars; 4) Sulfide Stability of Planetary Basalts; 5) Exposure and Terrestrial Histories of New Lunar and Martian Meteorites.
Source record↗
All Recent Mars Landers Have Landed Downrange - Are Mars Atmosphere Models Mis-Predicting Density?
All recent Mars landers (Mars Pathfinder, the two Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity, and the Mars Phoenix Lander) have landed further downrange than their pre-entry predictions. Mars Pathfinder landed 27 km downrange of its prediction [1], Spirit and Opportunity landed 13.4 km and 14.9 km, respectively, downrange from their predictions [2], and Phoenix landed 21 km downrange from its prediction [3]. Reconstruction of their entries revealed a lower density profile than the best a priori atmospheric model predictions. Do these results suggest that there is a systemic issue in present Mars atmosphere models that predict a higher density than observed on landing day? Spirit Landing: The landing location for Spirit was 13.4 km downrange of the prediction as shown in Fig. 1. The navigation errors upon Mars arrival were very small [2]. As such, the entry interface conditions were not responsible for this downrange landing. Consequently, experiencing a lower density during the entry was the underlying cause. The reconstructed density profile that Spirit experienced is shown in Fig. 2, which is plotted as a fraction of the pre-entry baseline prediction that was used for all the entry, descent, and landing (EDL) design analyses. The reconstructed density is observed to be less dense throughout the descent reaching a maximum reduction of 15% at 21 km. This lower density corresponded to approximately a 1- low profile relative to the dispersions predicted. Nearly all the deceleration during the entry occurs within 10- 50 km. As such, prediction of density within this altitude band is most critical for entry flight dynamics analyses and design (e.g., aerodynamic and aerothermodynamic predictions, landing location, etc.).
Desai, Prasun N.↗
Real-Time Detection of Dust Devils from Pressure Readings
A method for real-time detection of dust devils at a given location is based on identifying the abrupt, temporary decreases in atmospheric pressure that are characteristic of dust devils as they travel through that location. The method was conceived for use in a study of dust devils on the Martian surface, where bandwidth limitations encourage the transmission of only those blocks of data that are most likely to contain information about features of interest, such as dust devils. The method, which is a form of intelligent data compression, could readily be adapted to use for the same purpose in scientific investigation of dust devils on Earth. In this method, the readings of an atmospheric- pressure sensor are repeatedly digitized, recorded, and processed by an algorithm that looks for extreme deviations from a continually updated model of the current pressure environment. The question in formulating the algorithm is how to model current normal observations and what minimum magnitude deviation can be considered sufficiently anomalous as to indicate the presence of a dust devil. There is no single, simple answer to this question: any answer necessarily entails a compromise between false detections and misses. For the original Mars application, the answer was sought through analysis of sliding time windows of digitized pressure readings. Windows of 5-, 10-, and 15-minute durations were considered. The windows were advanced in increments of 30 seconds. Increments of other sizes can also be used, but computational cost increases as the increment decreases and analysis is performed more frequently. Pressure models were defined using a polynomial fit to the data within the windows. For example, the figure depicts pressure readings from a 10-minute window wherein the model was defined by a third-degree polynomial fit to the readings and dust devils were identified as negative deviations larger than both 3 standard deviations (from the mean) and 0.05 mbar in magnitude. An algorithm embodying the detection scheme of this example was found to yield a miss rate of just 8 percent and a false-detection rate of 57 percent when evaluated on historical pressure-sensor data collected by the Mars Pathfinder lander. Since dust devils occur infrequently over the course of a mission, prioritizing observations that contain successful detections could greatly conserve bandwidth allocated to a given mission. This technique can be used on future Mars landers and rovers, such as Mars Phoenix and the Mars Science Laboratory.
Wagstaff, Kiri↗
FIDO-Class Development Rover
A report describes a rover-type robotic wheeled vehicle recently built for use as a testbed for development of software for future rover-type vehicles. This vehicle is a derivative of the Field Integrated Design and Operations (FIDO) rover, which is a prototype Mars-exploration rover that also serves as a terrestrial testbed. The present vehicle was designed to be nearly functionally identical to the FIDO rover but to be built at much lower cost and to incorporate several improvements to increase utility for development work. Accordingly, considerable effort was made to use commercial off-the-shelf parts and other parts that could be fabricated easily and at low cost. Important features of this vehicle include six-wheel drive and six-wheel steering; onboard computer and power, control, and data-communication electronics having flexibility needed for development of software; significantly increased maximum speed (60 cm/s versus 6 cm/s for the FIDO rover); a rocker-bogey suspension with external differential link, functionally equivalent to that of the FIDO rover; and a hand-held remote controller that can be used to control vehicle motion manually without using the computer (or while waiting for the onboard computer to boot up).
Herman, Herman↗
Impact-Facilitated Hydrothermal Alteration in the Rim of Endeavour Crater, Mars
Endeavour crater, a Noachian-aged, 22 km diameter impact structure on Meridiani Planum, Mars, has been investigated by the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunuity for over 2000 sols (Mars days). The rocks of the western rim region (oldest to youngest) are: (i) the pre-impact Matijevic fm.; (ii) rim-forming Shoemaker fm. polymict impact breccias; (iii) Grasberg fm., fine-grained sediments draping the lower slopes; and (iv) Burns fm., sulfate-rich sandstones that onlap the Grasberg fm. The rim is segmented and transected by radial fracture zones. Evidence for fluid-mediated alteration includes m-scale detections of phyllosilicates from orbit, and cm-scale variations in rock/soil composition/mineralogy documented by the Opportunity instrument suite. The m-scale phyllosilicate detections include Fe(3+)-Mg and aluminous smectites that occur in patches in the Matijevic and Shoemaker fms. Rock compositions do not reveal substantial differences for smectite-bearing compared to smectite-free rocks. Interpretation: large-scale hydrothermal alteration powered by impact-deposited heat acting on limited water supplies engendered mineralogic transfomations under low water/rock, near-isochemical conditions. The cm-scale alterations, localized in fracture zones, occurred at higher water/rock as evidenced by enhanced Si and Al contents through leaching of more soluble elements, and deposition of Mg, Ni and Mn sulphates and halogen salts in soils. Visible/near infrared reflectance of narrow curvilinear red zones indicate higher nanophase ferric oxide contents and possibly hydration compared to surrounding outcrops. Broad fracture zones on the rim have reflectance features consistent with development of ferric oxide minerals. Interpretation: water fluxing through the fractures in a hydrothermal system resulting from the impact engendered alteration and leaching under high water/rock conditions. Late, localized alteration is documented by Ca-sulfate-rich veins that are not confined to fracture zones; some cross-cut the Grasberg fm. Interpretation: late fluid mobilization of soluble elements, likely in a later alteration event.
Mittlefehldt, D. W.↗
Plans and Concepts for a New Generation of RTGs for Planetary Science Missions
Of the six types of radioisotope thermoelectric generators NASA has flown in space, only the Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (MMRTG) is currently available for spaceflight, and it relies on technology first used for RTGs in the 1970s. The MMRTG is a rugged power system capable of delivering 110W at launch. NASA is considering future missions with higher power demands however, and sponsored a study to identify concepts and plans to address those needs. The Director of NASA’s Planetary Sciences Division was briefed on a potential enhancement to the MMRTG in late-2012, just a couple of days after the landing of the Mars Science Laboratory rover, Curiosity, on Mars. NASA subsequently funded system-level engineering and technology maturation tasks for a proposed enhanced MMRTG, or eMMRTG, in fiscal year 2013. There was no plan to build a complete generator, rather the engineering of one, and the transfer of technology from laboratories at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to industry were begun. NASA has now formed a Project to take the eMMRTG from technology to a qualification unit. This would form the first of a new generation of RTGs in 50 years. NASA has also formed a Project for a Next-Generation RTG concept based upon a study led by this author and a large team. NASA’s Radioisotope Power Systems (RPS) Program set the objective for the study to explore what possible options NASA has for Next-Generation-RTGs. The scope and breadth of the study included many possible destinations within the solar system, and traded a variety of RTG conceptual designs, and risk rated a variety of thermoelectric materials and couple configurations. Requirements were defined for the RTG concepts, a variety of thermoelectric materials were evaluated to find the most mature candidates, and performance was estimated for each RTG concept that could use the most mature of these new thermoelectric materials. The study relied upon mission concepts outlined in the latest Planetary Science Decadal Survey (2011), other more recent mission studies completed throughout the agency, and recent analyses of potential missions to ocean worlds to identify requirements that were not applied to previous RTGs but might prove valuable to these NG-RTGs. RTG concepts with maximal potential utility were identified as being modular and ranging in power output from 50 to 500W. A variety of RTG design concepts with several distinguishing characteristics were formulated. The plans and concepts for a new generation of RTGs (the eMMRTG and NG-RTG) will be discussed.
Woerner, David F.↗
Design of an Excavation Robot: Regolith Advanced Surface Systems Operations Robot (RASSOR) 2.0
To continue on a sustainable and flexible path, NASA needs to address the challenge of collecting and moving large amounts of regolith at the destination. Acquiring the water resources on Mars will require mining significant quantities of regolith and this is not possible with the state-of-the-art low mass excavation systems. Low gravity environments (Mars = 3/8 G) and launch mass restrictions limit the traction and the resulting reaction force of the vehicle, making current terrestrial techniques impractical. This project addressed this challenge by developing a completely new technology that can mine large quantities of regolith on Mars. Recent measurements by the “Curiosity” rover on Mars have found that the regolith contains ~ 2% water by weight globally, ~4% in Jezero Crater (Human Architecture Team’s reference landing site), and much more at the poles(Leshin et al, 2013). RASSOR 2.0 is a planetary excavator, which has a mass of 66 kg, with a 0.38 kg vehicle mass per kilogram, per hour of excavation rate and power usage of 4 W per kg of regolith excavation rate. A single RASSOR 2.0 can excavate a minimum of 2.7 metric tons of regolith per day.This is accomplished by using counteracting excavation forces on two opposing digging implements called bucket drums and an autonomous mining control system. This work has addressed several major research areas outlined in the NASA Technology Area (TA) 04 Robotics & Autonomous Systems and TA 07 Human Destination Systems roadmaps. This project started at Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 4 as a low fidelity “proof of concept” prototype which has successfully demonstrated basic regolith simulant excavation functionality in a lab-scale gravity off load test. The foundational technology described here was awarded US patent number: US 9027265 for a “Zero horizontal reaction force excavator” on May 12, 2015.
RASSOR↗
Crew Performance Support System to Aid in Anomaly Resolution: Concept of Operations
As missions progress into deep space, communication delays and disruptions will disenable the crew’s reliance on Earth experts. There are also limitations in the amount of data that can be downlinked to the ground. It is prudent to assume that critical, complex vehicle or habitat sub-systems will malfunction at a time when a lunar or Mars’ crew cannot rely on the Earth-Support team to detect, diagnose and resolve the problem and it is impractical to expect a small crew to step-in with the same level of expertise as 50+ authorities. The crew will need novel processes and advanced technological support to independently identify and resolve safety- and time-critical anomalies. That a self-reliant crew is unable to respond appropriately to time-critical anomalies is a significant risk to crew safety and mission success. This risk is driven by several factors; novel and unanticipated anomalies would not have been trained pre-flight, the crew could forget their pre-flight training or spaceflight stressors could impair the crew’s problem-solving ability. At last year’s IWS, Beard reported that a single spaceflight stressor (elevated CO2) could undermine the crew’s ability to independently respond to emergencies. Concept of Operations (ConOps) provide a common view of future system functions to all stakeholders. For the current project, a ConOps was developed that describes the operational processes, practices and capabilities needed by a crew of astronauts on deep space missions to autonomously respond to anticipated and unanticipated anomalies. It is crucial to recognize that, as of August 2018 existing technologies are unable to effectively support crew anomaly response to unanticipated events. “Intelligent technology” has not reached a maturity level that permits generalizing a solution to novel situations. For example, to train intelligent technology requires volumes of data that do not exist. The complexities involved in a manned mission to Mars cannot be compared to sending rovers to Mars using scripted software. This ConOps proposes a Crew Performance Support System (CPSS) that will push NASA and its industry partners toward what will be required for a safe and successful manned mission to Mars. Anomaly resolution during a deep space mission will take place within a dynamic, or changing, context. The figure to the left shows five broad contextual variables: the organizational culture, mission context, system characteristics, team characteristics and individual characteristics. The yellow arrow indicates that spaceflight and task-related stressors can affect system, team and individual crewmember characteristics and therefore anomaly response potential. The figure depicts a protective umbrella of Human-System Integration (HSI) principles that should be instituted during CPSS development including a balanced workload, shared situation awareness and building an appropriate level of trust in the automation. The figure also depicts two interrelated and cooperative components, an HSI Data System and other Enabling Capabilities will be required to support crew anomaly response and Earth-Support situation awareness. As we journey from ISS to Gateway to Mars, multiple, simultaneous and integrated research and development efforts (i.e., support systems co-evolution) must be implemented to meet the problem-solving challenges a self-reliant crew will face on a Mars’ mission. The crossovers between the capabilities are just as important as the discrete capabilities themselves. As the capabilities mature, the lines between the support subdomains will blur and an integrated system will emerge. The ConOps summarizes current knowledge about how highly trained people solve anomalies in safety- and time-critical situations, describes a group of capabilities that could help to reduce the extant risk and documents requirements levied on additional systems that provides critical inputs to the CPSS. Scenarios are used to promote a shared understanding of processes, practices and technological goals needed for safe and productive manned missions beyond LEO.
HSIA risk↗
MER vistas: ground-truth for Earth-based radar
Earth-based delay-Doppler radar observations of Mars with four receiving stations were carried out during the Mars oppositions of 2001 and 2003 in support of Mars Exploration Rover landing site selection. This interferometric planetary radar technique has demonstrated radar mapping of Mars with a 5 km spatial resolution.
Mars Exploration Rover (MER)↗