MARS ANALOG RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY EXPERIMENT (MARTE), A SIMULATED MARS DRILLING PROJECT

摘要

Searching for life in the subsurface of another planet will require drilling, sample extraction and handling, and new technologies to find and identify biomarker compounds ands search for living organisms. The Science Definition Team for the 2009 Mars Exploration Program Smart Lander mission has called for drilling as a key objective of the next Mars mission. Thus, there is a critical and immediate need for technology maduration for drilling that can be accomplished with a field mission simulation.