European Scientists Plan New Mars Missions
By JANE WARDELL
LONDON (AP) — European scientists set out a route map Tuesday for manned missions to Mars that aims to land astronauts on the Red Planet in less than 30 years.
Like U.S. President George W. Bush’s proposed mission to Mars, the plan put forward by the European Space Agency involves a “stepping stone” approach, which includes robotic missions and a manned trip to the Moon first.
“We need to go back to the Moon before we go to Mars. We need to walk before we run,” said Dr. Franco Ongaro, who heads the ESA’s Aurora program for long-term exploration of the solar system, at a meeting of Aurora scientists in London. “These are our stones. They will pave the way for our human explorers.”
The ESA has planned two flagship missions to Mars – ExoMars would land a rover on the planet in 2009, and Mars Sample Return would bring back a sample of the Martian surface in 2011-14.
Other test missions will include a non-manned version of the flight that would eventually carry astronauts to Mars to demonstrate aerobraking, solar electric propulsion and soft landing technologies.
A human mission to the Moon, proposed for 2024, would demonstrate key life-support and habitation technologies, as well as aspects of crew performance and adaptation to long-distance space flight.
The program is expected to cost about 900 million euros (US$1.13 billion) over the next five years.
Professor Colin Pillinger, the British scientist behind the recent ill-fated Beagle 2 expedition, said it was important to determine whether life existed on Mars before pressing ahead with a manned mission.
“Would it be right for us to tamper with the ecology on another body?” he asked. “My opinion is that it probably wouldn’t.”
The ExoMars rover would use solar arrays to generate electricity and travel several kilometers (miles) across the surface of Mars.
It would have on-board software enabling it to operate autonomously, and, like Beagle 2, a set of scientific instruments designed to search for signs of past or present life.
Mars Sample Return would be a more complex mission requiring five spacecraft – an interplanetary transfer stage, a Mars orbiter, a descent module, an ascent module and an Earth re-entry vehicle.
The module would contain a drill to collect soil samples and was expected to send back around half a kilogram (one pound) of Martian soil.
Scientists hope the expedition has a better outcome than the Beagle 2 trip. The British built lander, which was due to land on Mars on Christmas Day, has not been heard from since it separated from the ESA’s mother ship, Mars Express, in mid-December, despite several efforts to contact it.
Mars Express itself has functioned as intended, orbiting the planet. ESA scientists said last month that it had found the most direct evidence yet of water in the form of ice on Mars, detecting molecules vaporizing from the Red Planet’s south pole.
By contrast, NASA’s twin rovers are reaching out to scoop and analyze the Martian surface some 6,600 miles (10,560 kilometers) apart, both machines using their robotic arms as intended following a software glitch.
President Bush last month sought to chart a new course for NASA, focusing on a return to the Moon by 2020 in preparation for manned missions to Mars and beyond.
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