Human Exploration of Mars Gets a Science Strategy

A new report from a National Academies committee today lays out a science strategy for human exploration of the surface of Mars. Sponsored by NASA, the committee was asked to identify science priorities and campaigns to execute them in light of the current focus on sending human explorers, not just robots, to the Red Planet.

Co-chaired by UC-Berkeley’s Lindy Elkins-Tanton and MIT’s Dava Newman, the 241-page report starts off with a list of 11 prioritized science objectives for the “exploration zone” around whatever Mars landing site is chosen. At a press conference today in Washington, D.C., Elkins-Tanton and Newman stressed that their charter did not allow them to recommend where to land, only the science priorities wherever that may be.

The committee’s next task was to lay out several “campaigns” to carry out those priorities, with each campaign encompassing the first three landings of “human-scale” landers.

They selected four campaigns. One is based on a “30-30-30” architecture. The other three use a “30-Cargo-300” plan.  The “30” designations refer to 30 Martian days and “300” to 300 Martian days. One Martian day — a “sol” — is about 40 minutes longer than an Earth day.

Each of the four campaigns cover three Mars landings of “human-scale” landers that may or may not carry astronauts.

The first three are “30-Cargo-300” concepts where a 30-Martian-day human mission would go first, followed by an uncrewed cargo mission to deliver supplies and infrastructure to support a long-duration crewed mission of 300 Martian days. Each of the 30-Cargo-300 concepts has different goals. In priority order, one would attempt to achieve all the 11 science objectives with a single landing site and the exploration zone around it. The second instead would optimize getting the most “crucial” measurements. The third would prioritize searching for signs of existing life by drilling 2-5 kilometers below the surface where liquid water is thought to exist.

The fourth-ranked campaign is the “30-30-30” scenario where three consecutive crewed missions would land at different locations on Mars for 30 Martian days each to explore the diversity of the surface of Mars.

The committee made four recommendations. The first calls for an “evolution” of planetary protection guidelines that they say limit the search for existing or past life on Mars by astronauts. Planetary protection guidelines seek to protect other planets from contamination by microbes from Earth as we send spacecraft there, and Earth from contamination by microbes from other planets as samples return to Earth on robotic or crewed missions (“forward and back contamination”). One of the other recommendations, number 3, is that every human mission to Mars bring samples back to Earth.

 

Planetary protection guidelines are set by the Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) of the International Science Council. The National Academies’ Space Studies Board (SSB) is the U.S. National Representative to COSPAR. The SSB and NASA have played a dominant role in negotiating those guidelines with other countries over the decades. By coincidence, the SSB’s Committee on Planetary Protection also is meeting in Washington, D.C. this week.

The other two recommendations are to establish a laboratory on Mars so crews can analyze what they find while they’re there, and that NASA initiate a recurring “Human-Agent Teaming Summit” to discuss how best to team humans with “agents” like robotic spacecraft and artificial intelligence.