Introduction: Mars Science Laboratory: The Next Generation of Mars Landers

摘要

The Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) will provide scientists with access to previously inaccessible landing sites by providing precision landing within less than 10 km of a target landing site, at landing sites with elevations up to 2.5 km. With these capabilities, MSL will be the first lander in a new generation of landers, providing near-global abcess to the Mars surface. The first-generation landers, Viking and Pathfinder, provided successful landing on Mars but by design were limited to large-scale, hundreds-of-kilometer, landing sites with minimal local hazards. Similar to Pathfinder, the Mars Exploration Rover landers used a ballistic entry at Mars with approximately 80-km landing footprints. The MSL technology will not only provide the capability to achieve the science goals defined for MSL but will provide capability needed for a range of mission classes including Mars Sample Return missions, potential Mars Scout missions, and human exploration missions. In addition, MSL provides the starting point for future pinpoint landing capability, landing within hundreds of meters from a target landing site.