More Momentum at NASA for Leaving Mars 2020 Samples on Ground

摘要

NASA's plan to simplify the Mars 2020 rover's mission by letting the Curiosity-clone dig up and drop surface samples instead of babysitting them until a fetch rover arrives is starting to win hearts and minds within the agency, NASA's Mars czar said in a June 25 interview. When Mars 2020 was conceived in 2012, NASA engineers and scientists thought the rover would drill sample cores from the Martian surface, tuck them away in tubes, and tuck the tubes into a collection box to be carted around with the rover like cash in an armored car. In a subsequent mission, Mars 2020's cache would be transferred to a Mars ascent vehicle that would carry the samples to orbit for return to Earth. But "about a month ago," Jim Watzin, the agency's Mars Exploration Program director, said he approved a plan conceived in a November system concept review to remove the caching box from Mars 2020. Under the new plan, Mars 2020 will collect and tube samples, then leave the tubes in piles wherever the rover's operations team thinks is best.