A report sponsored by NASA views robotic return of samples from Mars as a top-priority.

The newly issued study, An Astrobiology Strategy for the Exploration of Mars, was written by a blue ribbon group of the National Research Council’s (NRC) Space Studies Board, an arm of the National Academy of Sciences.

The NRC study recommends that “the highest-priority science objective for Mars exploration must be the analysis of a diverse suite of appropriate samples returned from carefully selected regions on Mars.”

To date, NASA has been implementing a “follow the water” approach in its robotic studies of Mars. The new report found that this tactic should be expanded to include “follow the carbon,” along with other key biologically relevant elements.

“The finding of evidence for past or present life beyond Earth would have profound philosophical and scientific ramifications, and a finding either that life was present or that it was not would have dramatic implications for the prospects for life elsewhere in the universe,” the report says.

A recommendation of the study is that NASA should employ a combination of techniques that utilize both “Earth-centric and non-Earth-centric” approaches that focus on the basic concepts in carbon chemistry, imaging, mineral assemblages, and isotopic measurements.

The study group also found that sample return should be seen as a program that NASA and the Mars science community have already embarked upon - rather than as a single, highly complex, in the billions of dollars type of risky mission that would happen at some future time.

To get the show on the road, the NRC report says that all surface missions — following NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory rover to be launched in 2009 – should involve “sample caching” to prepare for a relatively early return of samples to Earth.

Sample return is essential, the report says, and “it is critical that any astrobiological evidence that might be present on Mars not be compromised by robotic or human activities before definitive measurements or sample return occur.”

A report recommendation is that international collaboration in Mars missions should be pursued in order to make expensive missions affordable, especially in the areas of sample caching and sample return.

Lastly, one area of relatively straightforward collaboration, the report points out, would involve encouraging the European Space Agency (ESA) to include a sample-caching capability on its Mars rovers currently under development - such as ESA’s Exo-Mars project.

 

 

 

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 2nd, 2007 at 9:54 am and is filed under Space & Astronomy, Technology, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.