It took years of fierce debate to winnow the dozens of potential landing sites for NASA's Mars Curiosity rover down to just one. But although the $2.5-billion dollar machine won't land in Gale Crater until August, Mars scientists are already thinking about where they want to go to next. On Wednesday, at a workshop held in Herndon, Virginia, 40 of them developed a list of ten high-priority sites that must be characterized in preparation for future missions.
Some would consider it premature to plan for a future rover, given that Curiosity could be the last in a long time. Just two weeks ago, NASA announced that it would be withdrawing from missions that it had been set to pursue with the European Space Agency (ESA) in 2016 and 2018. ESA says that it is working with Russia to fill the gaps left by the US withdrawal, but nothing has been decided.
Nevertheless, workshop organizers say that data must be gathered on the new sites as soon as possible. The urgency stems from worries about the longevity of the satellite that has done the bulk of the work so far: the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), which was launched in 2005. One of the 14 charge coupled device (CCD) detectors on its high-resolution camera no longer works, and one of the three cryogenic coolers used for its imaging spectrometer is now out of commission. There is nothing remotely similar planned to replace it.
To read more, click here.