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All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2005

Assessment of Mars Exploration Rover Landing Site Predictions

The Mars Exploration Rover (MER) landing sites in Gusev crater and Meridiani Planum were selected because they appeared acceptably safe for MER landing and roving and had strong indicators of liquid water. The engineering constraints critical for safe landing were addressed via comprehensive evaluation of surface and atmospheric characteristics from existing and targeted remote sensing data and models that resulted in a number of predictions of the surface characteristics of the sites, which are tested more fully herein than a preliminary assessment. Relating remote sensing signatures to surface characteristics at landing sites allows these sites to be used as ground truth for the orbital data and is essential for selecting and validating landing sites for future missions.

Golombek, M. P.↗
NASA NTRS2001

Potential MER Landing Site in Melas Chasma

We have selected one area in Valles Marineris as a potential landing site for the Mars Exploration Rover (MER) mission. After 30 years of analyses, the formation of the Valles Marineris system of troughs and its associated deposits still remains an enigma. Understanding all aspects of the Valles Marineris would significantly contribute to deciphering the internal and external history of Mars. A landing site within Melas Chasma could provide insight into both the formation of Valles Marineris and the composition and origin of the interior layered deposits (ILDs). The ILDs have been proposed as: (1) sedimentary deposits formed in lakes mass wasted material from the walls; (3) remnants of the wall rock; (4) carbonate deposits; (5) aeolian deposits; and (6) volcanic. More recently, Malin and Edgett suggest that the fine-scale, rhythmic layering seen in the interior deposits, as well as other layered deposits in craters, supports a sedimentary origin. Because an understanding of the formation of Valles Marineris and its interior deposits is so important to deciphering the history of Mars, we have proposed a landing site for the MER mission on an exposure of interior deposits in western Melas Chasma. Either MER-A and MER-B could land at this same location.

Weitz, C. M.↗
NASA NTRS2018

Wind-Driven Erosion and Exposure Potential at Mars 2020 Rover Candidate-Landing Sites

Aeolian processes have likely been the predominant geomorphic agent for most of Mars’ history and have the potential to produce relatively young exposure ages for geologic units. Thus, identifying local evidence for aeolian erosion is highly relevant to the selection of landing sites for future missions, such as the Mars 2020 Rover mission that aims to explore astrobiologically relevant ancient environments. Here we investigate wind-driven activity at eight Mars 2020 candidate-landing sites to constrain erosion potential at these locations. To demonstrate our methods, we found that contemporary dune-derived abrasion rates were in agreement with rover-derived exhumation rates at Gale crater and could be employed elsewhere. The Holden crater candidate site was interpreted to have low contemporary erosion rates, based on the presence of a thick sand coverage of static ripples. Active ripples at the Eberswalde and southwest Melas sites may account for local erosion and the dearth of small craters. Moderate-flux regional dunes near Mawrth Vallis were deemed unrepresentative of the candidate site, which is interpreted to currently be experiencing low levels of erosion. The Nili Fossae site displayed the most unambiguous evidence for local sand transport and erosion, likely yielding relatively young exposure ages. The down selected Jezero crater and northeast Syrtis sites had high-flux neighboring dunes and exhibited substantial evidence for sediment pathways across their ellipses. Both sites had relatively high estimated abrasion rates, which would yield young exposure ages. The down selected Columbia Hills site lacked evidence for sand movement, and contemporary local erosion rates are estimated to be relatively low.

Matthew Chojnacki↗
NASA NTRS2018

Wind-Driven Erosion and Exposure Potential at Mars 2020 Rover Candidate-Landing Sites

Abstract Aeolian processes have likely been the predominant geomorphic agent for most of Mars' history and have the potential to produce relatively young exposure ages for geologic units. Thus, identifying local evidence for aeolian erosion is highly relevant to the selection of landing sites for future missions, such as the Mars 2020 Rover mission that aims to explore astrobiologically relevant ancient environments. Here we investigate wind-driven activity at eight Mars 2020 candidate-landing sites to constrain erosion potential at these locations. To demonstrate our methods, we found that contemporary dune-derived abrasion rates were in agreement with rover-derived exhumation rates at Gale crater and could be employed elsewhere. The Holden crater candidate site was interpreted to have low contemporary erosion rates, based on the presence of a thick sand coverage of static ripples. Active ripples at the Eberswalde and southwest Melas sites may account for local erosion and the dearth of small craters. Moderate-flux regional dunes near Mawrth Vallis were deemed unrepresentative of the candidate site, which is interpreted to currently be experiencing low levels of erosion. The Nili Fossae site displayed the most unambiguous evidence for local sand transport and erosion, likely yielding relatively young exposure ages. The downselected Jezero crater and northeast Syrtis sites had high-flux neighboring dunes and exhibited substantial evidence for sediment pathways across their ellipses. Both sites had relatively high estimated abrasion rates, which would yield young exposure ages. The downselected Columbia Hills site lacked evidence for sand movement, and contemporary local erosion rates are estimated to be relatively low. Plain Language Summary Wind-blown dune sand can wear away the Martian surface and uncover

Rover↗
NASA NTRS2017

Field Exploration and Life Detection Sampling Through Planetary Analogue Sampling (FELDSPAR).

Exploration missions to Mars rely on rovers to perform analyses over small sampling areas; however, landing sites for these missions are selected based on large-scale, low-resolution remote data. The use of Earth analogue environments to estimate the multi-scale spatial distributions of key signatures of habitability can help ensure mission science goals are met. A main goal of FELDSPAR is to conduct field operations analogous to Mars sample return in its science, operations, and technology from landing site selection, to in-field sampling location selection, remote or stand-off analysis, in situ analysis, and home laboratory analysis. Lava fields and volcanic regions are relevant analogues to Martian landscapes due to desiccation, low nutrient availability, and temperature extremes. Operationally, many Icelandic lava fields are remote enough to require that field expeditions address several sampling constraints that are experienced in robotic exploration, including in situ and sample return missions. The Fimmvruhls lava field was formed by a basaltic effusive eruption associated with the 2010 Eyjafjallajkull eruption. Mlifellssandur is a recently deglaciated plain to the north of the Myrdalsjkull glacier. Holuhraun was formed by a 2014 fissure eruptions just north of the large Vatnajkull glacier. Dyngjusandur is an alluvial plain apparently kept barren by repeated mechanical weathering. Informed by our 2013 expedition, we collected samples in nested triangular grids every decade from the 10 cm scale to the 1 km scale (as permitted by the size of the site). Satellite imagery is available for older sites, and for Mlifellssandur, Holuhraun, and Dyngjusandur we obtained overhead imagery at 1 m to 200 m elevation. PanCam-style photographs were taken in the field by sampling personnel. In-field reflectance spectroscopy was also obtained with an ASD spectrometer in Dyngjusandur. All sites chosen were 'homogeneous' in apparent color, morphology, moisture, grain size, and reflectance spectra at all scales greater than 10 cm. Field lab assays were conducted to monitor microbial habitation, including ATP quantification, qPCR for fungal, bacterial, and archaeal DNA, and direct cell imaging using fluorescence microscopy. Home laboratory analyses include Raman spectroscopy and community sequencing. ATP appeared to be significantly more sensitive to small changes in sampling location than qPCR or fluorescence microscopy. Bacterial and archaeal DNA content were more consistent at the smaller scales, but similarly variable across more distant sites. Conversely, cell counts and fungal DNA content have significant local variation but appear relatively homogeneous over scales of 1 km. ATP, bacterial DNA, and archaeal DNA content were relatively well correlated at many spatial scales. While we have observed spatial variation at various scales and are beginning to observe how that variation fluctuates over time as biodiversity recovers after an eruption, we do not yet fully understand what parameters lead to the observed spatial variation. Home laboratory analyses will help us further understand the elemental and structural composition of the basaltic matrices, but further field analyses are vital for the understanding how temperature, moisture, incident radiation, and so forth influence the habitability of a microclimate.

Field↗
NASA NTRS2006

Asymptotic Parachute Performance Sensitivity

In 2010, the Mars Science Laboratory mission will pioneer the next generation of robotic Entry, Descent, and Landing systems by delivering the largest and most capable rover to date to the surface of Mars. In addition to landing more mass than any other mission to Mars, Mars Science Laboratory will also provide scientists with unprecedented access to regions of Mars that have been previously unreachable. By providing an Entry, Descent, and Landing system capable of landing at altitudes as high as 2 km above the reference gravitational equipotential surface, or areoid, as defined by the Mars Orbiting Laser Altimeter program, Mars Science Laboratory will demonstrate sufficient performance to land on 83% of the planet s surface. By contrast, the highest altitude landing to date on Mars has been the Mars Exploration Rover at 1.3 km below the areoid. The coupling of this improved altitude performance with latitude limits as large as 60 degrees off of the equator and a precise delivery to within 10 km of a surface target, will allow the science community to select the Mars Science Laboratory landing site from thousands of scientifically interesting possibilities. In meeting these requirements, Mars Science Laboratory is extending the limits of the Entry, Descent, and Landing technologies qualified by the Mars Viking, Mars Pathfinder, and Mars Exploration Rover missions. Specifically, the drag deceleration provided by a Viking-heritage 16.15 m supersonic Disk-Gap-Band parachute in the thin atmosphere of Mars is insufficient, at the altitudes and ballistic coefficients under consideration by the Mars Science Laboratory project, to maintain necessary altitude performance and timeline margin. This paper defines and discusses the asymptotic parachute performance observed in Monte Carlo simulation and performance analysis and its effect on the Mars Science Laboratory Entry, Descent, and Landing architecture.

Way, David W.↗
NASA NTRS2004

Mars Exploration Rover: Launch, Cruise, Entry, Descent, and Landing

The Mars Exploration Rover Project was an ambitious effort to land two highly capable rovers on Mars and concurrently explore the Martian surface for three months each. Launched in June and July of 2003, cruise operations were conducted through January 4, 2004 with the first landing, followed by the second landing on January 25. The prime mission for the second rover ended on April 27, 2004. This paper will provide an overview of the launch, cruise, and landing phases of the mission, including the engineering and science objectives and challenges involved in the selection and targeting of the landing sites, as well as the excitement and challenges of atmospheric entry, descent and landing execution.

Entry, Descent, Landing, (EDL)↗
NASA NTRS2020

EDL Simulation Results for the Mars 2020 Landing Site Safety Assessment

The Mars 2020 rover is NASA’s next flagship mission, set to explore Mars in search of scientific evidence of past microbial life. Importantly, the rover will also, for the first time, have the ability to collect and cache rock and soil samples for retrieval and return to laboratories here on Earth. A key step in the development of the Mars 2020 mission is the selection of a suitable landing site with the largest likelihood of meeting scientific goals. This decision is a complex and critical one that requires close interaction between the scientific and engineering communities. The chosen landing site must be both scientifically interesting — providing the project with the greatest possible chance of gathering credible and defendable scientific evidence — and also safe enough to attempt a landing in the first place. Thus, arguably one of the most important undertakings of the Entry, Descent, and Landing (EDL) team, is to effectively enumerate, quantify, and communicate the landing risks to all of the stakeholders. The culmination of this effort is the Landing Site Safety Assessment, which is a review commissioned by the project, presided over by the EDL Standing Review Board, and attended by management and science stakeholders, in which the EDL team communicates their assessment of the associated landing risks and the statistical probability of a successful landing at each of the final candidate landing sites. This paper summarizes the results of high-fidelity computer simulations of the Mars 2020 EDL sequence used in this assessment. From an EDL performance perspective, all four candidates offer similar level of robustness, which is in-family with Mars Science Laboratory (MSL). However, two new features of the Mars 2020 EDL sequence – range trigger and Terrain-Relative Navigation (TRN) – dramatically enhance the capability of the EDL system to safely land at landing sites with much more rugged terrain than ever before considered. This has allowed the landing site selection for Mars 2020 to proceed in a manner that has been unprecedentedly weighted more heavily toward scientific interest and less heavily on engineering constraints. With TRN, the overall probability of success is predicted to be approximately 99% for all of the candidates.

David Way↗
NASA NTRS1999

Mars Surveyor Project Landing Site Activities

The Mars Surveyor Program --now a cooperative program led by NASA and CNES along with other international partners -- is underway. It has the primary science objective of furthering our understanding of the biological potential and possible biological history of Mars and has the complementary objective of improving our understanding of martian climate evolution and planetary history The missions will develop technology and acquire data necessary for eventual human Exploration. Launches of orbiters, landers and rovers will take place in 2001 and in 2003; in 2005 a complete system will be launched capable of returning samples to Earth by 2008. A key aspect of the program is the selection of landing sites. This abstract 1) reports on the status of the landing site selection process that begins with the 2001 lander mission and 2) outlines be opportunities for the Mars community to provide input into the landing site selection process.

Gulick, Virginia C.↗
NASA NTRS1999

Mars Surveyor Project Landing Site Activities

The Mars Surveyor Program -- now a cooperative program led by NASA and CNES along with other international partners -- is underway. It has the primary science objective of furthering our understanding of the biological potential and possible biological history of Mars and has the complementary objective of improving our understanding of martian climate evolution and planetary history. The missions will develop technology and acquire data necessary for eventual human exploration. Launches of orbiters, landers and rovers will take place in 2001 and in 2003; in 2005 a complete system will be launched capable of returning samples to Earth by 2008. A key aspect of the program is the selection of landing sites. This abstract 1) reports on the status of the landing site selection process that begins with the 2001 lander mission and 2) outlines the opportunities for the Mars community to provide input into the landing site selection process.

Gulick, V. C.↗
NASA NTRS2004

Mars Exploration Rovers Launch Performance and TCM-1 Maneuver Design

The Mars Exploration Rover (MER) project successfully landed two identical rovers on Mars in order to remotely conduct geologic investigations, including characterization of rocks and soils that may hold clues to past water activity. Two landing sites, Gusev crater and Meridiani Planum, were selected out of nearly 200 candidate sites after balancing science returns and flight system engineering and safety. Precise trajectory targeting and control was necessary to achieve the atmospheric entry requirements for the selected landing sites within the flight system constraints. This paper discusses the expected and achieved launch vehicle performance and the impacts of that performance on the first Trajectory Correction Maneuver (TCM-1) while maintaining targeting flexibility in accommodating additional project concerns about landing site safety and possible in-flight retargeting to alternate landing sites.

Trajectory Correction Maneuvers (TCMs)↗
NASA NTRS2005

The Mars Exploration Rover (MER) Transverse Impulse Rocket System (TIRS)

In a very short period of time the MER project successfully developed and tested a system, TIRS/DIMES, to improve the probability of success in the presence of large Martian winds. The successful development of TIRS/DIMES played a big role in the landing site selection process by enabling the landing of Spirit on Gusev crater, a site of very high scientific interest but with known high wind conditions. The performance of TIRS by Spirit at Gusev Crater was excellent. The velocity prediction error was small and Big TIRS was fired reducing the impact horizontal velocity from approximately 23 meters per second to approximately 11 meters per second, well within the airbag capabilities. The performance of TIRS by Opportunity at Meridiani was good. The velocity prediction error was rather large (approximately 6 meters per second, a less than 2 sigma value, but TIRS did not fire which was the correct action.

Transverse Impulse Rocket System (TIRS)↗
NASA NTRS2005

Development of a Coherent Lidar for Aiding Precision Soft Landing on Planetary Bodies

Coherent lidar can play a critical role in future planetary exploration missions by providing key guidance, navigation, and control (GNC) data necessary for navigating planetary landers to the pre-selected site and achieving autonomous safe soft-landing. Although the landing accuracy has steadily improved over time to approximately 35 km for the recent Mars Exploration Rovers due to better approach navigation, a drastically different guidance, navigation and control concept is required to meet future mission requirements. For example, future rovers will require better than 6 km landing accuracy for Mars and better than 1 km for the Moon plus maneuvering capability to avoid hazardous terrain features. For this purpose, an all-fiber coherent lidar is being developed to address the call for advancement of entry, descent, and landing technologies. This lidar will be capable of providing precision range to the ground and approach velocity data, and in the case of landing on Mars, it will also measure the atmospheric wind and density. The lidar obtains high resolution range information from a frequency modulated-continuous wave (FM-CW) laser beam whose instantaneous frequency varies linearly with time, and the ground vector velocity is directly extracted from the Doppler frequency shift. Utilizing the high concentration of aerosols in the Mars atmosphere (approx. two order of magnitude higher than the Earth), the lidar can measure wind velocity with a few watts of optical power. Operating in 1.57 micron wavelength regime, the lidar can use the differential absorption (DIAL) technique to measure the average CO2 concentration along the laser beam using, that is directly proportional to the Martian atmospheric density. Employing fiber optics components allows for the lidar multi-functional operation while facilitating a highly efficient, compact and reliable design suitable for integration into a spacecraft with limited mass, size, and power resources.

Amzajerdian, Farzin↗
NASA NTRS2003

Analysis of Atmospheric Mesoscale Models for Entry, Descent and Landing

Each Mars Exploration Rover (MER) is sensitive to the martian winds encountered near the surface during the Entry, Descent and Landing (EDL) process. These winds are strongly influenced by local (mesoscale) conditions. In the absence of suitable wind observations, wind fields predicted by martian mesoscale atmospheric models have been analyzed to guide landing site selection. Two different models were used, the MRAMS model and the Mars MM5 model. In order to encompass both models and render their results useful to the EDL engineering team, a series of statistical techniques were applied to the model results. These analyses cover the high priority landing sites during the expected landing times (1200 to 1500 local time). The number of sites studied is limited by the computational and analysis cost of the mesoscale models.

D M Kass↗
NASA NTRS2024

Key Perseverance Sampling Locations for the Ancient Martian Crust and Implications for Mars Science

Since Feb 2021, the Perseverance rover has collected samples in the Jezero crater. The plan baselined at the 2018 landing site selection, subsequently further developed by the Mars-2020 team, and presented to the Decadal Survey included the exploration and sampling of the Jezero crater rim and the Nili Planum area, a rock record that is important to preserving the science return of the endeavor. Specifically, the science team identified the following prioritized science objectives aligned with community objectives that are not covered by the current sample cache: 1) Investigate the habitable environments with potential biosignatures from a more ancient time interval and from a diverse set of geological environments (incl. exposed subsurface) than the Jezero crater sedimentary deposits (Fig. 2). (2) Determine radioisotopic ages for well-defined craterretaining surfaces and/or the Isidis basin impact event. (3) Characterize ancient aqueous environments to study climate, environmental transitions, and habitability on ancient Mars. (4) Investigate planetary accretion, crustal evolution, and dynamo activity through analysis and sampling of igneous lithologies. (5) Study the geology of basin-forming impacts. In addition, for the Jezero rim and any Jezero ejecta: (6) Analyze Jezero impactites for potentially habitable hydrothermal environments and radioisotopic dating of the Jezero crater formation. From 2018 to now, we used a combination of High Resolution Imaging Experiment (HiRISE) and Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM) data to further characterize Jezero rim and Nili Planum, culminating in our prioritized sample location recommendations: (1) Monument Valley and (2) Northwest Jezero rim.

Mars sample return↗
NASA NTRS2004

Mars Exploration Rover - a new standard for interplanetary navigation

The twin Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, arrived at Mars for landings respectively at Gusev Crater (on January 4, 2004) and Meridiani Planum (on January 25, 2004). During the development of the mission, the capability of the navigation system to deliver the landers within a particular accuracy played a major role in landing site selection. This process ultimately resulted in commitments to deliver each lander within a specified landing ellipse (about 70 km x 5 km) determined to be safe for landing and also judged to be scientifically interesting. Achieving atmospheric entry delivery accuracies consistent with this landing requirement necessitated significant improvements to the interplanetary navigation system used for MER. These improvements included new processes and software for orbit determination, aggressive, mission-critical use of interferometric ADOR tracking data, propulsive maneuver design, and entry, descent, and landing (EDL) trajectory simulation. Because these advances pressed the state -of -the art, innovative methods to verify the assumptions in the pre-launch covariance analyses were also developed. The actual achieved atmospheric entry accuracies for Spirit and Opportunity significantly bettered the requirements.

navigation↗
NASA NTRS1999

1999 Marsokhod Field Experiment: A Simulation of a Mars Rover Science Mission

A field experiment to simulate a rover mission to Mars was performed in February 1999. This experiment, the latest in a series of rover field experiments, was designed to demonstrate and validate technologies and investigation strategies for high-science, high-technology performance, and cost-effective planetary rover operations. Objectives: The experiment objectives were to: (1) train scientists in a mission configuration relevant to Surveyor program rover missions at a terrestrial analog field site simulating the criteria of high-priority candidate landing-sites on Mars; (2) develop optimal exploration strategies; (3) evaluate the effectiveness of imaging and spectroscopy in addressing science objectives; (4) assess the value and limitation of descent imaging in supporting rover operations; and (5) evaluate the ability of a science team to correctly interpret the geology of the field site using rover observations. A field site in the California Mojave Desert was chosen for its relevance to the criteria for landing site selection for the Mars Surveyor program. These criteria are: (1) evidence of past water activity; (2) presence of a mechanism to concentrate life; (3) presence of thermal energy sources; (4) evidence of rapid burial; and (5) excavation mechanisms that could expose traces of life.

Stoker, C.↗
NASA NTRS2006

ROCK AND SOIL PHYSICAL PROPERTIES AT THE MER GUSEV CRATER AND MERIDIANI PLANUM LANDING SITES

Following the successful landings of both Mars Exploration Rover (MER) vehicles at Gusev Crater and Meridiani Planum, respectively, their Athena suite of instruments is being used to study the geologic history of these two very different landing sites on Mars that had been selected on the basis of showing different types of evidence for aqueous processes in the planet s past. Utilizing the on-board instruments as well as the rovers mobility system, a wide range of physical properties investigations is carried out as well - the subject of this abstract - that provide additional information on the geology and processes at the sites. Results of the mission in general as well as of the physical properties studies thus far greatly exceed expectations in that observations and measurements by both vehicles show a rich variety in materials and processes: the Gusev site in the vicinity of the lander is remarkably flat and generally devoid of large rocks along traverses up to the time of this writing (approx.Sol 50) and suggestive of a deflated surface with generally only thin veneers of bright dust while exhibiting evidence of a widespread occurrence of a crust from cemented fines that has been observed to fail in the form of blocky clods when disturbed by vehicle rolling action; numerous small and shallow depressions - presumably created by impacts - are observed at the site which are infilled with bright, fine-grained material that likewise appears indurated and which was studied by a trenching experiment; small ripple bedforms are scattered across the site and were characterized in terms of particle size distributions. At the Meridiani site, studies so far - up to approx.Sol 33 - have focussed on soils and the rock outcrop encountered within the approx.20 m diameter crater that the spacecraft came to rest in: from a physical properties point of view, a mantle of dark, well-sorted, apparently basaltic sand with small to moderate cohesion has been of interest - and has been studied by a trenching experiment - as well as a fine-grained unit underlying the mantle at least locally within the crater. Rock grindings were accomplished successfully at both sites at the time of this writing, suggesting different strengths of the two targets (the basaltic rock nicknamed Adirondack at Gusev and the Meridiani rock outcrop) in addition to enabling compositional measurements below the original rock surfaces.

Ming, Douglas W.↗