Details of Mars 2020 Sample Caching System Expected by Year's End

摘要

Now that NASA has picked out the seven scientific instruments the Mars 2020 rover will carry to the red planet in 2020, the agency is turning its attention to the sample-caching system the vehicle needs to contribute to the decade-spanning Mars sample-return campaign the planetary science community has anointed as its top priority. A decision on the design of the Mars 2020 sample-caching mechanism is expected "at the end of the calendar year," George Tahu, the Washington-based Mars 2020 program executive, said here at NASA headquarters during a Sept. 3 meeting of the NASA Advisory Council's planetary science subcommittee.