Landing - Blog Posts

Update your phones with our #CountdownToMars wallpapers, like this one, today: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/perseverance-mars-rover-wallpaper-images/

It's LANDING DAY for our Perseverance Mars Rover and her mission to search for ancient signs of life on the Red Planet!

Watch LIVE coverage today starting at 2:15pm ET (18:15 UTC):

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We’re Landing a Rover on Mars in 2020…But How Do We Decide Where?

In 2020, we will launch our next Mars rover. It will journey more than 33 million miles to the Red Planet where it will land, explore and search for signs of ancient microbial life. But how do we pinpoint the perfect location to complete this science…when we’re a million miles away on Earth?

We utilize data sent to us by spacecraft on and orbiting Mars. That includes spacecraft that have recorded data in the past.

This week, hundreds of scientists and Mars enthusiasts are gathering to deliberate the four remaining options for where we’re going to land the Mars 2020 rover on the Red Planet.

The landing site for Mars 2020 is of great interest to the planetary community because, among the rover's new science gear for surface exploration, it carries a sample system that will collect rock and soil samples and set them aside in a "cache" on the surface of Mars. A future mission could potentially return these samples to Earth. The next Mars landing, after Mars 2020, could very well be a vehicle which would retrieve these Mars 2020 samples.

Here's an overview of the potential landing sites for our Mars 2020 rover…

Northeast Syrtis

This area was once warmed by volcanic activity. Underground heat sources made hot springs flow and surface ice melt. Microbes could have flourished here in liquid water that was in contact with minerals. The layered terrain there holds a rich record of interactions between water and minerals over successive periods of early Mars history.

Jezero Crater

This area tells a story of the on-again, off-again nature of the wet past of Mars. Water filled and drained away from the crater on at least two occasions. More than 3.5 billion years ago, river channels spilled over the crater wall and created a lake. Scientists see evidence that water carried clay minerals from the surrounding area into the crater after the lake dried up. Conceivably, microbial life could have lived in Jezero during one or more of these wet times. If so, signs of their remains might be found in lakebed sediments.

Columbia Hills

At this site, mineral springs once bubbled up from the rocks. The discovery that hot springs flowed here was a major achievement of the Mars Exploration Rover, Spirit. The rover’s discovery was an especially welcome surprise because Spirit had not found signs of water anywhere else in the 100-mile-wide Gusev Crater. After the rover stopped working in 2010, studies of its older data records showed evidence that past floods may have formed a shallow lake in Gusev.

Midway

Candidate landing sites Jezero and Northeast Syrtis are approximately 37 km apart…which is close enough for regional geologic similarities to be present, but probably too far for the Mars 2020 rover to travel. This midway point allows exploration of areas of both landing sites.

How Will We Select a Site?

The team is gathered this week for the fourth time to discuss these locations. It'll be the final workshop in a series designed to ensure we receive the best and most diverse range of information and opinion from the scientific community before deciding where to send our newest rover.

The Mars 2020 mission is tasked with not only seeking signs of ancient habitable conditions on Mars, but also searching for signs of past microbial life itself. So how do we choose a landing site that will optimize these goals? Since InSight is stationary and needs a flat surface to deploy its instruments, we’re basically looking for a flat, parking lot area on Mars to land the spacecraft.

The first workshop started with about 30 candidate landing sites and was narrowed down to eight locations to evaluate further. At the end of the third workshop in February 2017, there were only three sites on the radar as potential landing locations…

…but in the ensuing months, a proposal came forward for a landing site that is in between Jezero and Northeast Syrtis – The Midway site. Since our goal is to get to the right site that provides the maximum science, this fourth site was viewed as worthy of being included in the discussions.

Now, with four sites remaining, champions for each option will take their turn at the podium, presenting and defending their favorite spot on the Red Planet.

On the final day, after all presentations have concluded, workshop participants will weigh the pros and cons of each site. The results of these deliberations will be provided to the Mars 2020 Team, which will incorporate them into a recommendation to NASA Headquarters. A final selection will be made and will likely be announced by the end of the year.

To get more information about the workshop, visit: https://marsnext.jpl.nasa.gov/workshops/wkshp_2018_10.cfm

Learn more about our Mars 2020 rover HERE.

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Where Will We Land On Mars?

What?

You’ve heard us say that we’re on a journey to Mars, but the Red Planet is big. Once we get there, where will we land the first humans? We’re holding the first Landing Sites/Exploration Zones Workshop for Human Missions to the Surface of Mars to figure it out. This first workshop was held Oct. 27-30, 2015 at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston.

Why?

The goal of this workshop was to collect proposals for locations on Mars that would be of high scientific research value while also providing natural resources to enable explorers to land, live and work safely on the Red Planet. Determining where we will land humans on Mars is a multi-year process. There was around 45 proposal teams at the workshop. This was the first of many workshops to determine the best landing site for human exploration on Mars.

Why Now?

We plan to use existing assets at Mars, such as the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and the Odyssey spacecraft, to support the selection process of potential Exploration Zones. However, the life expectancy of MRO and Odyssey are limited. We are eager to take advantage of the remaining operational years of those Martian images to gather high resolution maps of potential Exploration Zones while the spacecraft remain operational.

Stay Updated

The workshop will be aired live USTREAM starting at 2 p.m. EDT Tuesday, Oct. 27.

This blog post will also be updated daily with a recap from the workshop’s events.

For a full schedule of the event visit: http://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/explorationzone2015/pdf/program.pdf

Day 1 Recap:

"There is no such thing as robotic exploration. All exploration is human exploration — the robot is just a tool.” - John Grunsfeld, NASA Associate Administrator for the Science Mission Directorate

Day one of the workshop answered a lot of basic questions about why looking at landing sites now is important for the future of our journey to Mars.

Attendees heard from many presenters, including Ellen Ochoa, Director of Johnson Space Center and John Grunsfeld, Associate Administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate.

Experts explained that in order to leverage our current assets at Mars and start the process of picking possible landing sites, we need to start the discussion now.

This data will Inform our efforts to define what we need as far as future reconnaissance capabilities at Mars and drive where we send robotic landers to get ground truth.

Check back tomorrow for the day two update, and watch live on USTREAM starting at 9 a.m. EDT.

BONUS: Have questions about potential landing sites on Mars? We’ll be hosting a live social Q&A tomorrow at 7 p.m. EDT. Two NASA experts and one 15-year old student on one of the proposal teams will be answering your questions. Tune in on USTREAM and use #askNASA.

Day 2 Recap:

The second day of the Mars Landing Sites Workshop was filled with presentations from various proposal groups. Contributors made cases for where the best science could be collected on the Martian surface.

We also had the opportunity to hear from a young presenter, Alex Longo. A 15-year old student from Raleigh, N.C.

Longo also joined us for the social Q&A where we answered questions from #askNASA. He, along with two NASA experts, fielded questions that ranged from specifics about the workshop, to chatting aboutMars mysteries.

Tune in tomorrow to watch more of the presentations and see potential Mars landing sites! Watch live on USTREAM starting at 9 a.m. EDT.

Check back tomorrow for the day three update.

Day 3 Recap:

The third day of the workshop included presentations from the remaining proposal teams. This final day of presentations will lead into the last day of the workshop, when groups will discuss all of the ideas shared during the past week.

The day got really exciting when our Space Exploration Vehicle (SEV) made an appearance. This SEV concept is designed to be flexible, depending on the exploration destination. The pressurized cabin can be used for surface exploration of planetary bodies, including near-Earth asteroids and Mars.

Tomorrow is the final day of the workshop and will include group discussions. Participants will have the chance to assess the proposed sites and talk about the future steps needed for selecting a potential human landing site for our journey to Mars.

Watch these discussions live on USTREAM starting at 9 a.m. EDT.

Final Day Recap:

The final day of our workshop on potential Mars landing sites included discussions on the presentations that were made throughout the week.

Participants also had the opportunity to hear from NASA experts like Jim Green, director of planetary science, about future exploration and our journey to Mars.

Video of the full workshop will be available on the Lunar Planetary Institute’s YouTube channel. For more information and updates on our journey to Mars, visit HERE.