Destination
Mars is the 4th planet from the sun and is known for its red colour. Due to its colour resembling blood, the romans named the planet after their god of war. The loose rock and dust covering the surface is full of iron rich minerals, which have oxidized, giving Mars its rust colour. Mars is about 227 940 000 km from the sun and is approximately one-sixth the size of Earth, making it the second smallest planet in our solar system. Mars has a thin atmosphere, made of 95% carbon dioxide, making the planet very cold and impossible for liquid water to exist at the surface, but is the only planet other than Earth to have polar ice caps. The temperature on Mars is never above 20° C. Mars has seasons just like Earth because of its 25 degree axial tilt, but due to its orbital distance, the seasons are twice as long. Mars does have weather patterns including, wind, dust storms, frost and fog. Mars has a rocky surface with craters, volcanoes and canyons. The highest volcano and largest canyon in the galaxy, Olympus Mons and Valles Marineris, are on Mars. The gravity on Mars is 37% of the gravity on Earth, meaning that you should be able to jump about 3 times as high on Mars as you do on Earth. It takes Mars 687 Earth days to orbit the sun and it takes Mars 24 hours and 40 minutes to complete one full rotation. Of all eight planets in the solar system, the orbit of Mars is the least circular. Mars has two moons named Phobos and Deimos. The surface of Mars is very different in each hemisphere. In the northern hemisphere, the surface is fairly smooth with few craters while in the southern hemisphere the surface has many more craters and is an area of highlands.
Previous Missions
Mariner 3 and 4 were identical spacecraft created to perform a flyby of Mars. Mariner 3 was launched on November 5, 1964 but encasing on its rocket failed to open, so Mariner 3 failed to get to Mars. Mariner 4 was launched on November 28, 1964 and succeeded to get to Mars. Mariner 4 flew past Mars on July 14th 1965 and collected the first ever close up photograph of another planet. Mariner 4 lasted about 3 more years in solar orbit and studied solar wind environment and coordinated measurements with Mariner 5, a sister ship launched to Venus in 1967. Mariner 6 and 7 were launched on February 24th 1969 and March 27th 1969 respectively and completed their Flyby missions on July 31st 1969 and Aug 5th 1969 respectively. Mariner 6 and 7 flew by the equator and south pole and analysed Martian atmosphere with sensors as well as taking photos and videos. Mariner 8 and 9 were launched on May 8th and May 30th 1971 respectively, but Mariner 8 failed during launch. Mariner 9 arrived in Mars’s orbit on November 13th 1971. Mariner 9 transmitted information until October 27th 1972, information including dust storms around the whole planet and giant volcanoes and canyons. Viking 1 and 2 were launched on August 20th 1975 and September 9th 1975 and landed on June 19th 1976 and August 7th 1976. These were the first spacecraft to land successfully of the surface of another planet. Viking 1 and 2 each had a lander and an orbiter. Mars Observer was launched on September 25th 1992 and contact was lost with the spacecraft just before it was about to enter orbit. Mars Pathfinder was launched December 4th 1996, included a lander and the Sojourner rover and transmitted 2.3 billion bits of information while exploring Ares Vallis. Mars Climate Orbiter was launched on December 11th 1998 and was designed to be a weather transmitter. It was lost on arrival September 23rd 1999 and engineers concluded that it probably burned up while entering the atmosphere. Mars Polar Lander/Deep Space 2 was launched on January 3rd 1999 and was designed to dig for ice water on the edge of Mars southern polar cap and test new technologies respectively. Mars Polar Lander/Deep Space 2 was lost on arrival on December 3rd 1999. Mars Global Surveyor was launched on November 7th, 1996 and arrived on September 12th 1997. The spacecraft operated on Mars 4 times longer than the original mission plan. Mars Global Surveyor collect a lot of information about Mars and last communicated with Earth on November 2nd 2006. Phoenix was launched on August 4th 2007 and arrived to Mars on May 25th 2008. Phoenix’s mission was to dig up and analyze Mars’s icy soil. The goals of the mission was to study the history of water in the Martian artic as well as search for evidence of a habitable zone and assess the biological potential of the ice-soil boundary. The mission brought back information about water on Mars.
Aims
The aims of the mission to Mars is to send a rover that can collect samples of different terrain on Mars and to search for any organic material that could indicate past life. This mission could answer questions such as was there ever life on Mars and is there a possibility that Mars could host life in the future. By collecting samples of the different terrain on Mars at different depths, scientists and the rover will be able test and analyse these samples for signs of water in the past and organic materials. If these samples hold remnants of water and organic materials then it could mean that Mars is capable of hosting life because it did in the past. If different types of organic materials are found then it could show what vegetation Mars is able to produce and maintain, which could be the future plants humans could grow on the planet if evidence of life is found. All of this could answer the ultimate question, could humans ever live on Mars?
Instrumentation
The rover will include 4 instruments, a SuperCam, PIXL, SHERLOC and RIMFAX. SuperCam is an instrument that can take pictures, perform chemical composition analysis and the study of minerals. SuperCam is will be able to identify organic compounds in rock and regolith. This is helpful for my mission because it will be searching for organic materials in different terrain as well as studying the minerals in the soil of Mars. The analysis of soil could be able to tell us if water ever flowed on Mars. Planetary Instrument for X-ray Lithochemistry (PIXL) is an instrument that has an X-Ray fluorescence spectrometer and an apparatus capable of taking high-resolution photos. PIXL can determine the elemental structure and composition of the materials on the surface of Mars. The detailed detection performed by PIXL is useful for my mission because the type of materials the surface of Mars is made of can impact potential future growth, it would be good to know if Mars is capable of hosting life, what types of plants it can grow. Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals (SHERLOC) is a spectrometer that takes pictures as well as uses an ultraviolet laser to determine the types of minerals and find organic compounds. This is important for my mission because it could find evidence of past life and detect of Mars is capable of growing plants. The Radar Imager for Mars' Subsurface Exploration (RIMFAX) is a type of camera that has ground-penetrating radar and takes high-resolution photos of underneath the surface of Mars. This is helpful for my mission because the geological structure of the subsurface could hold proof of past water flow and could help determine the past habitability of the planet.
Justification
My mission should receive funding because of its important to the future. This mission could prove that humans are not alone in the universe by demonstrating that other planets are capable of hosting life. This is important information because this knowledge could be used to look for other planets that have intelligent life, or even life at all. The mission is useful for the future because the discoveries could be used to work on trying to maintain life on Mars. If Mars proves capable of hosting life, humans could potentially become a multi-planet species. This way, over-population would be less of a problem if a large portion of humans were moved to another planet because more space would be available. As well, if anything were to ever happen to the humans on the other planet, such as a deadly virus getting loose, humans would still survive because only one planet would be contaminated.