by Matthew Golombek
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
3-4pm
Thursday October 30, 2003
Refreshments served at 2:45pm
Munk Conference Room
Cecil and Ida M. Green Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics
Scripps Institution of Oceanography
University of California, San Diego
http://mahi.ucsd.edu/seminar/
Abstract
Selection of Meridiani Planum and Gusev crater as the Mars Exploration Rover landing sites took over 2 years, involved broad participation of the science community via 4 open workshops, and narrowed an initial ~155 potential sites (80-300 km long by 30 km wide) to 4 finalists based on science and safety. Engineering constraints important to the selection included: (1) latitude (10°N-15°S) for maximum solar power, (2) elevation (<-1.3 km) for sufficient atmosphere to slow the lander, (3) low horizontal winds, shear and turbulence in the last few kilometers to minimize horizontal velocity, (4) low 10-m-scale slopes to reduce airbag spinup and bounce, (5) moderate rock abundance to reduce abrasion or stroke-out of the airbags, and (6) a radar-reflective, load-bearing and trafficable surface safe for landing and roving that is not dominated by fine-grained dust. Evaluation of sites utilized existing as well as targeted orbital information acquired from Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Odyssey. Three of the final four landing sites show strong evidence for surface processes involving water and appear capable of addressing the science objectives of the missions, which are to determine the aqueous, climatic, and geologic history of sites on Mars where conditions may have been favorable to the preservation of evidence of possible prebiotic or biotic processes. Evaluation of science criteria placed Meridiani and Gusev as the highest priority sites. Evaluation of the three most critical safety criteria (10-m-scale slopes, rocks, and winds) and landing simulation results indicated that Meridiani and Elysium Planitia are the safest sites, followed by, Gusev and Isidis Planitia.