Nasa delays its next Mars mission
BBC NEWS
December 5, 2008
The US space agency Nasa has delayed the launch of its Mars Science Laboratory rover mission.
MSL was to fly next year, but the mission has been dogged by testing and hardware problems.
The rover's launch has been postponed until 2011, Nasa said.
The mission is using innovative technologies to explore whether microbial life could ever have existed on the Red Planet.
The delay could add $400m to the price tag, which is likely to top $2bn.
"Trying for '09 would require us to assume too much risk, more than I think is appropriate for a flagship mission," said Nasa's administrator Michael Griffin.
The launch date was changed following an assessment by the mission's scientists and engineers of the progress it has made in the past three months.
"Despite exhaustive work in multiple shifts by a dedicated team, the progress in recent weeks has not come fast enough on solving technical challenges and pulling hardware together," said Charles Elachi, director of Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, US.
"The right and smart course now for a successful mission is to launch in 2011."
Technology hurdles
MSL will use novel technologies to adjust its flight while descending through the Martian atmosphere, and to set the rover on the surface by lowering it on a tether from a hovering platform.
It is engineered to drive longer distances over rougher terrain than previous rovers and contains a science payload 10 times the mass of instruments on Nasa's Spirit and Opportunity Mars rovers.
"Up to this point, efforts have focused on launching next year, both to begin the exciting science and because the delay will increase taxpayers' investment in the mission," said Doug McCuistion, director of Nasa's Mars exploration programme.
"However, we've reached the point where we can not condense the schedule further without compromising vital testing."
The window for a 2009 launch ends in late October. The relative positions of Earth and Mars are favourable for flights to Mars only a few weeks every two years.
The next launch opportunity after 2009 is in 2011.
Joining forces
Dr Ed Weiler, chief scientist at Nasa, announced he had held discussions with the European Space Agency (ESA) about holding joint missions to Mars in future.
He said preliminary discussions with his opposite number at ESA, David Southward, had led to an informal agreement, that in future they would adopt a joint architecture for all missions to Mars.
They are aiming towards carrying out a combined effort in the early 2020's, to return rocks from Mars to Earth laboratories.
Europe has already made a decision to delay its own Mars rover, ExoMars, from 2013 to 2016.
Dr Weiler said there was a possibility this mission could also become joint with Nasa.
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