NASA Mars Rover 2020: Next Mars Rover to Seek Signs of Life

A sketch of the design for NASA's 2020 Mars rover. 

Planning for NASA's 2020 Mars rover envisions a basic structure that capitalises on re-using the design and engineering work done for the NASA rover Curiosity.

NASA rover Curiosity landed on Mars in 2012, but with MSL, the new science instruments selected through competition for accomplishing different science objectives with the 2020 mission.

CREDIT: NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA's next Mars rover should hunt for signs of past Red Planet life and collect samples for eventual return to Earth, a team of mission planners has determined.

The new Mars rover — slated to launch in 2020 — should explore a site that once was habitable, make its own observations and snag material for scientists here on Earth to study in unprecedented detail at some point in the future, according to a new report compiled by the mission's "science definition team" (SDT).

"The SDT-preferred mission concept employs new in situ scientific instrumentation in order to seek signs of past life (had it been there), select and store a compelling suite of samples in a returnable cache and demonstrate technology for future robotic and human exploration of Mars," states the report, which was released to the public today (July 9).

The 2020 Mars rover will be based heavily on NASA's Curiosity rover, which touched down last August on a mission to determine if Mars could ever have supported microbial life.

For example, the new robot will use a similar chassis and "sky crane" landing system, NASA officials have said. But the 2020 rover will take the science to a whole new level.

"The 2020 rover as proposed by the Science Definition Team would carry a different and more advanced set of science instruments than Curiosity carries, its drill would extract cores rather than blended powder from rocks and it would collect and package samples for possible future return to Earth," NASA officials wrote today in an FAQ about the SDT's report.

Just what those instruments will be is unclear at the moment; they will be selected through a competitive process but the science gear will search for visual, mineralogical and chemical signs of past life if the SDT recommendations are adopted.

"The capability for examining the mineralogic composition of samples at microscopic scale would be unprecedented for a mission to Mars," NASA officials wrote in the FAQ.

"The search for potential signs of past life could use assessments of textures, shapes, mineralogy, organic-matter content, and possibly elemental chemistry at the scale of individual grains within a sample."

The rover would also gather and store samples for potential return to Earth by a future mission (the timing and details of which are yet to be determined).

Sample-return is viewed by most scientists as the best way to look for signs of Red Planet life.

The new rover's landing site has not been selected yet, officials said, and its power source similarly has not been confirmed.

The Mars Science Laboratory rover, Curiosity, took this self portrait, which shows its Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (RTG) at center

Curiosity is powered by a radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG), which converts the heat generated by radioactive decay into electricity.

The 2020 rover may follow suit, but it's also possible that it could run on solar power, like NASA's smaller Spirit and Opportunity rovers, which landed on Mars in 2004.

"No final decision on a power source for the 2020 rover would be made until the mission completes a review through the National Environmental Policy Act process, which considers the environmental impacts of launching and conducting the mission," NASA officials wrote in the FAQ.

Curiosity's mission cost a total of $2.5 billion. The 2020 rover is expected to be significantly cheaper, with a total price tag estimated at around $1.5 billion.

Japan's Fukushima's Damaged Reactor plants

An aerial view taken from a Japanese Self-Defence Force helicopter shows damage sustained to the reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power complex. Reactors No. 1 to 4 are seen from right to left.

Picture: REUTERS / TEPCO

British nuclear watchdog issues grave concerns on safety of French & Japanese reactors

nuclear safety watchdog has warned that French and US-Japanese reactors planned for construction in Britain could be rejected unless safety concerns were met.

The Health and Safety Executive said it has some concerns about features of both designs of the reactor technologies, proposed for use in a new generation of British nuclear power stations.

"We continue to believe that the UK EPR could be suitable for construction on licensed sites in the UK," it said in a report released Thursday.

"However, we have identified a significant number of issues with the safety features of the design that would first have to be progressed.

"If these are not progressed satisfactorily then we would not issue a design acceptance confirmation," the report said.

The executive conducted a safety review of the AP-1000 reactor put forward by US nuclear firm Westinghouse, now owned by Japan's Toshiba, and the European Pressurised Reactor (EPR) from French power giant Areva.

"As is normal for complex assessment projects of this type, we are identifying technical questions and issues that we are requesting Westinghouse to address," the report said.

Final approval of the designs is not due to be granted until 2011.

The British government decided to go ahead with a new generation of nuclear plants to replace the country's ageing nuclear infrastructure, most of which will be decommissioned by 2023. Ministers hope the first of a new generation of stations can come on stream as early as 2017.