The Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), scheduled to land on Mars in August of 2012, brings with it the most advanced set of instruments yet to land on another planet. One of MSL's primary science instruments, Mastcam, was originally scoped to be the first zoom lens camera to operate on Mars. After descope and an 11th-hour reinstatement, zoom lens assemblies were built and mechanically qualified for the MSL mission in less than 12 months. Although they passed mechanical functional and life testing, the zoom lenses did not demonstrate superior optical performance (in the limited time available for optimization) compared to fixed focal length (FFL) lenses built following the earlier zoom descope. As a result, the Mastcam instrument does not have zoom capability as initially planned; it is equipped instead with 34mm and 100mm FFL lenses. Nevertheless, the design, development and qualification of the zoom lens mechanisms resulted in several valuable lessons learned. The Mastcam zoom lens, designed to operate in the severe environment of the MSL mission for one Martian year (approximately 2 Earth years) with 2x margin on life, is described along with the issues that were encountered in fabrication, assembly and testing in an accelerated schedule.
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