SCIENTIFIC OBJECTIVES AND OPPORTUNITIES ASSOCIATED WITH NASA’S MARS 2020 ROVER MISSION

The Mars 2020 Science Definition Team (SDT), chartered in January 2013 by NASA, formulated a spacecraft mission concept for a science-focused, highly mobile rover to explore and investigate in detail a site on Mars that likely was once habitable. The mission, based on the Mars Science Laboratory rover systems including the spectacularly successful Entry Descent and Landing, would address, within a cost- and time-constrained framework, four objectives: (A) Explore an astrobiologically relevant ancient environment on Mars to decipher its geological processes and history, including the assessment of past habitability: (B) Assess the biosignature preservation potential within the selected geological environment and search for potential biosignatures. (C) Demonstrate significant technical progress towards the future return of scientifically selected, well-documented samples to Earth. And (D) provide an opportunity for contributed Human Exploration or Space Technology Program (STP) participation. The SDT addressed the four objectives and six additional charter-specified tasks independently specifically looking for synergy among them. There is both independent and interconnected reasoning within the four objectives. Objectives A and B are each ends unto themselves, while Objective A is also the means by which samples are selected for objective B, and together they motivate and inform Objective C. Objective D goals are well aligned with A through C. Critically, Objectives A, B, and C as an ensemble brought the SDT to the conclusion that exploration oriented toward astrobiology and the preparation of a returnable cache of carefully selected and documented surface samples is the only acceptable mission concept. Importantly the SDT concluded that the measurement suite need to attain these objectives were essentially identical, consisting of six types of field measurements: 1) context imaging and 2) context mineralogy, 3) fine-scale imaging, 4) fine-scale mineralogy, 5) fine-scale elemental chemistry, and 6) organic matter detection. The mission concept fully addresses the requirements specified by NASA in the SDT Charter while also ensuring alignment with the recommendations of the National Academy of Sciences Decadal Survey for Planetary Exploration (Visions and Voyages, 2011).