Science Panel Pushes for Mars Surface Network

摘要

A newly released review of NASA's robotic Mars exploration plans urges the U.S. space agency to consider installing a network of science stations across Mars' surface as soon as 2016 to monitor the seismology and atmosphere of the red planet. The review, performed at NASA's request by a National Academy of Sciences panel, is generally supportive of the agency's 10-year plan for exploring Mars with orbiters and landers, but raises questions about NASA's technology-development efforts and suggests a couple of longstanding goals of planetary scientists have been left out. Among them is a so-called Mars Long-Lived Lander Network, defined in the report as "a grid of science stations that will make coordinated measurements around Mars' globe for at least 1 Martian year."