Exploration of Subsurface Mars’ Geology and Water

Abstract The purpose of this mission is to send a robotic laboratory to the atmosphere of Mars to look for the presence of Water. The robotic laboratory will observe the surface of Mars and then dig on Mars to see if there is any possibility of Water. If Water can be successfully located on Mars, there could be a possibility of life there.

Literature Review There has been many ventures to Mars. Mars has been considered to be a planet that might have life presently or might have had it in the past. (McKay, Gibson, Thomas, Vali, Romanek, Clemett, and Zare, 1996). There have been many ventures to mars to know about many aspects of mars like what is the temperature, the pressure, the possibility of oxygen and many more reasons.

Literature Review contd. Mars is a physical planet and, being so close to Earth, we have explored a lot of Mars. The surface temperature of Mars reaches from - 87 degrees Celsius to 20 degrees Celsius yet the normal is - 63 degrees Celsius. Our mission for 2020 is to send a large drill to Mars to drill down into the surface in an attempt to find out more about the composition of Mars and the location of liquid groundwater. The purpose of our exploration mission is to conduct experiments on the Mars ground to have a more objective study.

Method The method is to first build a robot in the laboratory. It will have robotic arms. Sophisticated cameras installed on it. An internal laboratory. It will extract samples from the ground of Mars and make experiments on it to see if there is any possibility for the existence on Water.

Materials The robot will be made of a material that can sustain Martian pressure. The robot body will be mechanically feasible for Mars overall environment The robot laboratory will have enough chemicals to conduct experiments for the exploration of Water.

Instruments The robot will have mounted cameras to assist in navigation and sending imagery to earth The robot will have mechanical motors that will help it move on the surface of mars. Already available rockets will be used to deliver the robot to the atmosphere of Mars The robot will have communication devices to communicate with earth station.

Data Collected The laboratory at the robot will get soil sample and dig on the surface of Mars It will perform experiments on the samples. These experiments will be performed with already organized programs that will make the laboratory function. The programs will then make decisions on whether there is any sign on Water based on the data collected and generated The results of different test will be send to earth on regular basis

Team members and their responsibilities Rohan Shrivastava: Leader (manages people and time, makes sure all participate) Alvin Zhao: Recorder (keeps track of results and records lab report)         Rashed Al-shamisi: Checker (makes sure all results are correctly reported)

Cost of the study The Cost of the Robot is estimated to be 600 Million USD The study would last for 2 years It would have administrative and personnel costs of 35 Millions

Timeline 45 days to take the robot to the atmosphere of Mars Another 4.5 months to land the robot on Mars (approximately). 1.5 years to conduct scientific studies for the search of Water on Mars

Discussion and Conclusion The main goal of the scientific community is to investigate if there is any possibility of life on the surface of Mars in the present or in the past. This will help the scientists to look for possibilities to send manned mission to Mars. The mars has the nearest day time length to that of earth which means that if the humans had to go to any planet other than Earth and explore the possibilities of a permanent presence there, it would probably be Mars. The discovery of Water would mean The possibility of Life in present or past on Mars.