What if Mars Surveyor 2001 had not been cancelled?

JonClarke · Nov 13, 2008

Here is another Phoenix-based hypotheticals  I have already posted on about MPL, now it is the turn of Mars Surveyor 2001. Phoenix was likewise based on the cancelled  Mars Surveyor 2001 mission (in turned based on MPL and deployed many of the same tools and instruments. Based on Phoenix’s experience we can ask the question: What might it have seen and discovered?Mars Surveyor 2001 was equipped with the following:  <ol style="margin-top:0cm"><li class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm0.25pt0.25pt;color:black;line-height:130%;tab-stops:list36.0pt">Athena Science package <ol style="margin-top:0cm"><li class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm0.25pt0.25pt;color:black;line-height:130%;tab-stops:list72.0pt">Mars Descent Imager –MARDI (flown on Phoenix, also MER)</li><li class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm0.25pt0.25pt;color:black;line-height:130%;tab-stops:list72.0pt">Robotic arm (flown on Phoenix)</li><li class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm0.25pt0.25pt;color:black;line-height:130%;tab-stops:list72.0pt">Robotic arm camera (flown on Phoenix)</li><li class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm0.25pt0.25pt;color:black;line-height:130%;tab-stops:list72.0pt">Mars Environment Compatibility experiment – MECA (flown on Phoenix) </li><li class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm0.25pt0.25pt;color:black;line-height:130%;tab-stops:list72.0pt">Panoramic Camera – PanCam (flown on MERs)</li><li class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm0.25pt0.25pt;color:black;line-height:130%;tab-stops:list72.0pt">Mini-TES (flown on MERs)</li><li class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm0.25pt0.25pt;color:black;line-height:130%;tab-stops:list72.0pt">Mars Radiation Environment Experiment – MARIE  (not flown)</li><li class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm0.25pt0.25pt;color:black;line-height:130%;tab-stops:list72.0pt">Mars In-situ Propellant production experiment – MIP (not flown)</li></ol></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm0.25pt0.25pt;color:black;line-height:130%;tab-stops:list36.0pt">Marie Curie Rover  -  near duplicate of the Sojourner Truth rover on Pathfinder (not  flown) <ol style="margin-top:0cm"><li class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm0.25pt0.25pt;color:black;line-height:130%;tab-stops:list72.0pt">Alpha-Proton X-ray Spectrometer (APXS)</li><li class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm0.25pt0.25pt;color:black;line-height:130%;tab-stops:list72.0pt">Stereo black and white front cameras and a mono black and white rear camera. </li></ol></li></ol> The probe was scheduled to land either in the Isidis area (also a MER candidate, and chosen for Beagle 2), or Meridiani – the same area that Opportunity landed in.  For the sake of discussion, let’s assume it was Meridiani. So, what might Mars Surveyor 2001 have seen and discovered with its instruments, compared to Opportunity?  What might it not have discovered that Opportunity did?     Note that all the field characterisation instruments of Mars Surveyor 2001 were flown at some stage – the rover on Pathfinder, MARDI (sans microphone), APX, PanCam, MiniTES on Opportunity, the robot arm and camera and MECA on Phoenix.  So we have a good idea of what they all could do.Jon  <img src="http://sitelife.space.com/ver1.0/Content/images/store/7/2/67e5274f-4534-4db8-a26f-c66fdc438980.Medium.jpg" alt="" /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Whether we become a multi-planet species with unlimited horizons, or are forever confined to Earth will be decided in the twenty-first century amid the vast plains, rugged canyons and lofty mountains of Mars Arthur Clarke </div>

trailrider · Nov 13, 2008

What if Apollo 18, 19 & 20 hadn't been cancelled? What if the Soviets had continued with the N-1?  What if....? What's the point of looking back, except to avoid the problem in the future?  "The saddest words are these: 'It might have been.'"We need to look forward, and push the new President and Congress to press on with our exploration programs, unmanned and manned.  Either that or we will become the Portugal of the Space Age, bowing to China, India, and who knows who else!

JonClarke · Nov 14, 2008

OK, this is what I think Mars  Surveyor might have found had in landed at Meridiani.  The big difference is the equitorial site, Mars Surveyor might have lasted as long as Opportunity.  I will asumme it landed on the plane covered in small wind ripples in haematite lab perhapds 10 cm deep over shattered sulphate rich bedrock.Athena Science package Mars Descent Imager –  MARDI  Presumably this unit too would have had to have been turned off because of the same fault as Phoenix experienced.  Given the limited utility of MARDI to Opportunity this might to have been no great loss. Robotic arm The Robot arm worked very well and would have bug through the haematite gravel with ease.  The rasp and scaper would also have been able to cut through the very soft bedrock as well, so the arm may well have been able to dig the full 60 cm it was capable of.  This would have duplicated the exposures that Oppotunity saw in the rims of craters like Eagle and Fram. Robotic arm camera The robotic arm camera would have been able to get close up images the blueberries in the sand and in the bedrock, it would also have got close ups of the evaporite moulds.  This would have duplicated Opportunity's opservations in and around Eagle crater. Mars Environment Compatibility experiment  (MECA)Based on Phoenix experience, this would have worked very well.  It would have accurately identified the salts in the ripples and the bedrock, determined the pH and measured the oxidants.  Aparat from gross mineralogy  this is information that Opportunity would not have been able to obtain, and would have answered key questions about mars surface chemistry 6 years earlier than was the case. Panoramic Camera – PanCam  As with Opportunity's instrument, PanCam would have given very nice high resolution images of the rippled plain.  Much higher off the ground that Pathfinder's camera, it would have been able to give better direction to the rover.  It highyt have been able to image the cracks in the ground, the rare boulders and exspoures of fractured bedrock, if any had been in range.  Because Mars Surveyor was stationary we would not have had the range of landscapes that Opportunity revealed, the dune fields, the crater walls and interiors.  On the other hand it might have been able to get more information on cloud matterns and other atmospheric phenomena. Mini-TES As with Opportunity, I suspect this instrument would have been a little disapointing because of its low spatial resolution  But it would have still been able to idetify the blueberries as being made of haematite, and the bedrock as being most sulphates.  It may also have been able to differentiate the presence of magnesium, calcium, and iron sulphates, and jarosite in either outcrop or in the trenches.  Being stationary, it could not have been able to characterise the range of materials that Opportunity's MiniTES could.  On the other hand, it copuld spend more time examining atmospheric structure.  Mars Radiation Environment Experiment (MARIE)This would have been a marvelous instrument complementing the orbiting MARIE.  It would have been a very valuable experiment for those interested in planning human missions, and also informed us a great deal about the Mars radiation environment and the physics of the Martian atmosphere.  Opportunity had nothing like it.  And nothing like it is scheduled until, perhaps, the ExoMars base station. Mars In-situ Propellant production experiment – MIPThis too would have been of particular interest to those interested in human exploration and also large unmanned sample return missions.  Asfar as I know there are no plans to repeat this experiment, which is a pity. Marie Curie Rover Sojourner travelled 100 m before the Pathfinder link failed after 80.  Assuming Mars Surveyor lasted longer, Marie Curie might travel hundreds of metres.  How far it could move away from the lander I am not sure, I don't know the range of the comm link.  But with the camera and antenna higher of the ground and fewer obstacles it would probably be able to go further than Sojourner, perhaps 10s of metres.Depending on where the lander came down, it might be able to climb the rim of a crater, investigate an outcrop, perhaps even a crack, boulder, or meteorite.  It would certaily be able to use its instruments on the trench dug by the robot arm.Alpha-Proton X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) Using the APX Marie Curie would be able to complement the MiniTES and MECA obserarvations extremely well.  You cohad complementary wet chemistry, spectoscopy, and APX chemical data.  The instrument would have been able to determine the chemical composition of the and, the blueberries, and the bedrock.  This is a much more powerful instrument combination (IMHO) that Opportunity could deploy. Stereo black and white front cameras and a mono black and white rear camera.  Marie Curie's cameras were not particularly good. But they would have been good enough to provide andother way of discovering blueberries and eavporite moulds.  They might also have been able to image a view across a crater, assuming there was one within reach. What I find interesting is that Mars Surveyor 2001, even though stationary, would have been able to discover 60-80% of what Opportunity has, plus do some extra things that Opportunity could not, namely MECA, MIP and MARIE.  We could have missed out on the range of features and the larger scale contextural measurments that Opportunity could access, however. Jon   <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Whether we become a multi-planet species with unlimited horizons, or are forever confined to Earth will be decided in the twenty-first century amid the vast plains, rugged canyons and lofty mountains of Mars Arthur Clarke </div>

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What if Mars Surveyor 2001 had not been cancelled?

JonClarke

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