Mars 2020 Rover Mission The Mars 2020 mission addresses high-priority science goals for Mars exploration, including key questions about the potential for life on Mars. The mission takes the next step by not only seeking signs of habitable conditions on Mars in the ancient past, but also searching for signs of past microbial life itself. Now being assembled, the Mars 2020 rover introduces a drill that can collect core samples of the most promising rocks and soils and set them aside in a "cache" on the surface of Mars for possible later study. The mission also provides opportunities to gather knowledge and demonstrate technologies that address the challenges of future human expeditions to Mars. These include testing a method for producing oxygen from the Martian atmosphere, identifying other resources (such as subsurface water), improving landing techniques, and characterizing weather, dust, and other potential environmental conditions that could affect future astronauts living and working on Mars. The mission is timed for a launch opportunity in July/August 2020 when Earth and Mars are in good positions relative to each other for a February 2021 landing on Mars. That is, it takes less power to travel to Mars at this time, compared to other times when Earth and Mars are in different positions in their orbits.

Mars 2020 Rover Instrumentation To keep mission costs and risks as low as possible, the Mars 2020 design is based on NASA's successful Mars Science Laboratory mission architecture, including its Curiosity rover and proven landing system (that will be enhanced). Mars 2020 is leveraging the design and some spare hardware from the Curiosity Rover with a new payload of instruments.

Rover 2020 Instruments: Mastcam-Z The Mastcam-Z is the name of the mast-mounted camera system that is equipped with a zoom function on the Mars 2020 rover. Mastcam-Z has cameras that can zoom in, focus, and take 3-D pictures and video at high speed to allow detailed examination of distant objects. Mastcam-Z is an advanced camera system with panoramic and stereoscopic imaging capability with the ability to zoom. The instrument also will determine mineralogy of the Martian surface and assist with rover operations.

Rover 2020 Instruments: SuperCam The SuperCam on the Mars 2020 rover examines rocks and soils with a camera, laser and spectrometers to seek organic compounds that could be related to past life on Mars. It can identify the chemical and mineral makeup of targets as small as a pencil point from a distance of more than 20 feet (7 meters). SuperCam is an instrument that can provide imaging, chemical composition analysis, and mineralogy. The instrument will also be able to detect the presence of organic compounds in rocks and regolith from a distance.

Rover 2020 Instruments: PIXL The arm-mounted Planetary Instrument for X-ray Lithochemistry , PIXL, has a tool called an X-ray spectrometer. It identifies chemical elements at a tiny scale. PIXL also has a camera that takes super close-up pictures of rock and soil textures. It can see features as small as a grain of salt. Together, this information helps scientists look for signs of past microbial life on Mars. PIXL is a X-ray fluorescence spectrometer that will also contain an imager with high resolution to determine the fine scale elemental composition of Martian surface materials. PIXL will provide capabilities that permit more detailed detection and analysis of chemical elements than ever before.

Rover 2020 Instruments: SHERLOC The Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence for Organics & Chemicals has a nickname: SHERLOC. Mounted on the rover's robotic arm, SHERLOC uses spectrometers, a laser and a camera to search for organics and minerals that have been altered by watery environments and may be signs of past microbial life. SHERLOC’s spectrometers will provide fine-scale imaging and use an ultraviolet (UV) laser to determine fine-scale mineralogy and detect organic compounds. SHERLOC will be the first UV Raman spectrometer to fly to the surface of Mars and will provide complementary measurements with other instruments in the payload.

Rover 2020 Instruments: MOXIE The Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment is better known as MOXIE. NASA is preparing for human exploration of Mars, and MOXIE will demonstrate a way that future explorers might produce oxygen from the carbon dioxide in the Martian atmosphere for propellant and for breathing.

Rover 2020 Instruments: MEDA The Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer is known as MEDA. It makes weather measurements at several senor locations on the rover including wind speed and direction, temperature and humidity. It also measures the amount and size of dust particles in the Martian atmosphere.

Rover 2020 Instruments: RIMFAX The Radar Imager for Mars' Subsurface Experiment (RIMFAX) uses radar waves to probe the ground under the rover. It is located at the lower rear of the Mars 2020 rover’s “body." The radar signals returned to RIMFAX look a little like sonograms that show structures under the Martian surface. The radar signals change depending on what materials are present underground, such as ice, rock, sand, and liquid water. RIMFAX will provide centimeter-scale resolution of the geologic structure of the subsurface

2020 Rover: Descent and Landing The Mars 2020 Rover will use the same entry descent and “Skycrane” landing technique pioneered by the Curiosity Rover. However the mission is incorporating major new technologies that improve entry, descent, and landing: Range Trigger, Terrain-Relative Navigation, MEDLI2, and its EDL cameras and microphone.

2020 Rover Landing: “Range Trigger” The key to the new precision landing technique is choosing the right moment to pull the "trigger" that releases the spacecraft's parachute. Mars 2020's Range Trigger deploys the parachute based on the spacecraft's position relative to the desired landing target. That means the parachute could be deployed early or later depending on how close it is to its desired target. The Range Trigger strategy could deliver the Mars 2020 rover a few miles closer to the exact spot in the landing area that scientists most want to study. It could shave off as much as a year from the rover's commute to its prime work site. Another potential advantage of testing the Range Trigger is that it would reduce the risk of any future Mars Sample Return mission, because it would help that mission land closer to samples cached on the surface

2020 Rover Landing: Terrain–Relative Navigation Some of the most interesting places to explore lie in tricky terrain. Using terrain relative navigation, allowing it to land in more landing sites with far less risk. Until now, many of these potential landing sites have been off-limits. The risks of landing in challenging terrain were much too great. Using Terrain-Relative Navigation, the Mars 2020 rover will estimate its location while descending through the Martian atmosphere on its parachute. In prior missions, 99% of the potential landing area (the landing ellipse) had to be free of hazardous slopes and rocks to help ensure a safe landing. The spacecraft carrying the rover estimated its location relative to the ground before entering the Martian atmosphere, as well as during entry, based on an initial guess from radiometric data provided through the Deep Space Network.. That technique had an estimation error prior to EDL of about 0.6 - 1.2 miles (about 1-2 kilometers), which grows to about (2 - 3 kilometers) during entry. Using Terrain-Relative Navigation, the Mars 2020 rover will estimates its location while descending through the Martian atmosphere on its parachute. That allows the rover to determine its position relative to the ground with an accuracy of about 200 feet (60 meters) or less. How it works: Orbiters create a map of the landing site, including known hazards. The rover stores this map in its computer "brain." Descending on its parachute, the rover takes pictures of the fast approaching surface. To figure out where it's headed, the rover quickly compares the landmarks it "sees" in the images to its onboard map. If it's heading toward dangerous ground up to about 985 feet (300 meters) in diameter (about the size of two professional baseball fields side by side), the rover can change direction and divert itself toward safer ground.

2020 Rover Landing: Entry, Descent, and Landing (EDL) Cameras and Microphone Mars 2020 has a suite of cameras that can help engineers understand what is happening during one of the riskiest parts of the mission: entry, descent, and landing. The Mars 2020 EDL system also includes a microphone to capture sounds during EDL, such as the firing of descent engines. The Mars 2020 rover is based heavily on Curiosity's successful mission design, but Mars 2020 adds multiple descent cameras to the spacecraft design. The camera suite includes: parachute "up look" cameras, a descent-stage "down look" camera, a rover "up look" camera, and a rover "down look" camera. In addition to providing engineering data, the cameras and microphone can be considered "public engagement payloads." They are likely to give people on Earth a good and dramatic sense of the ride down to the surface! Memorable videos depicting EDL's "Seven Minutes of Terror for the 2012 landing of NASA's Curiosity Mars rover went viral online, but used computer-generated animations. No one has ever seen a parachute opening in the Martian atmosphere, the rover being lowered down to the surface of Mars on a tether from its descent stage, the bridle between the two being cut, and the descent stage flying away after rover touchdown!

Mars 2020 Rover: Studying Mars' Habitability, Seeking Signs of Past Microbial Life, Collecting and Caching Samples, and Preparing for Future Human Missions http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/mars-2020/ http://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/mission/overview/