Rationale and Proposed Design for a Mars Sample Return (MSR) Science Program
Name
ast.2021.0122.pdf
Description
Published version
Size
1.41 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
e345f7309e37a18c940e699c8f634c9c
Author(s)
Summons, Roger
Date Issued
2022
Journal
Astrobiology
Publisher
Mary Ann Liebert Inc
Citation
Summons, Roger. 2022. "Rationale and Proposed Design for a Mars Sample Return (MSR) Science Program." Astrobiology, 22 (S1).
Version
Final published version
Abstract
The Mars Sample Return (MSR) Campaign represents one of the most ambitious scientific endeavors ever undertaken. Analyses of the martian samples would offer unique science benefits that cannot be attained through orbital or landed missions that rely only on remote sensing and in situ measurements, respectively. As currently designed, the MSR Campaign comprises a number of scientific, technical, and programmatic bodies and relationships, captured in a series of existing and anticipated documents. Ensuring that all required scientific activities are properly designed, managed, and executed would require significant planning and coordination. Because there are multiple scientific elements that would need to be executed to achieve MSR Campaign success, it is critical to ensure that the appropriate management, oversight, planning, and resources are made available to accomplish them. This could be achieved via a formal MSR Science Management Plan (SMP). A subset of the MSR Science Planning Group 2 (MSPG2)-termed the SMP Focus Group-was tasked to develop inputs for an MSR Campaign SMP. The scope is intended to cover the interface to the Mars 2020 mission, science elements in the MSR flight program, ground-based science infrastructure, MSR science opportunities, and the MSR sample and science data management. In this report, a comprehensive MSR Science Program is proposed that comprises specific science bodies and/or activities that could be implemented to address the science functionalities throughout the MSR Campaign. The proposed structure was designed by taking into consideration previous management review processes, a set of guiding principles, and key lessons learned from previous robotic exploration and sample return missions.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1089/AST.2021.0122
