GENERAL MEETING INFORMATION

Introduction

The NASA Administrator has directed the Associate Administrator for the Science Mission Directorate (AA/SMD) to lead a reformulation of the Mars Exploration Program, working with the Associate Administrator for the Human Exploration and Operations Directorate (AA/HEOMD), the Office of the Chief Technologist (OCT), and the Office of the Chief Scientist (OCS). In support of this reformulation, NASA will assess near-term mission concepts and longer-term foundations of program-level architectures for future robotic exploration of Mars in sufficient detail for SMD to develop and select high pay-off mission(s) beginning with the 2018 launch opportunity. The resulting missions and architecture will be responsive to the scientific goals articulated by the National Research Council Planetary Decadal Survey (Visions and Voyages, 2012, NRC Press) and to the President’s challenge of sending humans to orbit Mars in the decade of the 2030s.

Purpose and Scope

In addition to being responsive to the scientific goals of the Decadal Survey, the reformulation effort will address the primary objectives of the Strategic Knowledge Gaps in the Human Exploration of Mars as well as the Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group (MEPAG) Goals. It will set the stage for a strategic collaboration between the Science Mission Directorate, the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate and the Office of the Chief Technologist, for the next several decades of exploring Mars. One of the key elements in developing this collaboration and the related mission and architecture options is to seek community ideas, concepts and capabilities to address critical challenge areas, focusing on a near-term timeframe spanning 2018 through 2024, and a mid- to longer-term timeframe spanning 2024 to the mid-2030s. To that end, NASA is sponsoring a three-day workshop to actively engage the technical and scientific communities in the early stages of a longer-term process of collaboration that bridges the objectives of the sponsoring NASA organizations. This workshop will be held June 12–14, 2012, at the Lunar and Planetary Institute, which is located in the Universities Space Research Association (USRA) building, 3600 Bay Area Boulevard, Houston TX 77058.

NASA will consider inputs from a variety of sources and will synthesize and integrate these inputs into the various options taking into consideration budgetary, programmatic, scientific, and technical constraints. The workshop is open to scientists, engineers, graduate students and academia, NASA Centers, Federal Laboratories, industry, and international partner organizations. The intent of the workshop is to provide an open forum for presentation, discussion, and consideration of various concepts, options, capabilities, and innovations to advance Mars exploration.

Key challenge areas are identified below for which innovative and cost-effective ideas are sought consistent with the near- and mid- to longer-term timeframes. Several examples are provided within each of the challenge areas, with an open invitation for the communities to offer other areas and/or ideas in each or both timeframes.

Based on the abstracts received, associated working groups will be organized to consider the ideas and concepts in depth during the workshop. These working groups will be present at the workshop, and will assess ideas and presentations to identify the most compelling approaches in the challenge areas. Near-term ideas will be taken into consideration for early mission planning in the timeframe, while mid- to longer-term ideas will be used to inform program level architecture planning.

This announcement is not a solicitation to fund studies on the basis of the abstracts submitted or selected for participation at the workshop.

Challenge Areas

Challenge Area 1:  Instrumentation and Investigation Approaches —

Near-term examples include, but are not limited to:

1. Interrogating the shallow subsurface of Mars, both from orbit (remote sensing, active, or passive) and from the surface (e.g., sounding, drilling, excavating, penetrators, or other approaches).
2. Lightweight and low-cost in situ instrumentation to identify and triage high-priority materials for analysis.
3. Orbital measurements of surface characteristics such as composition and morphology.

Mid- to longer-term examples include, but are not limited to:

4. Concepts for detection of trace-level organic matter in rock and dust without extensive in situ sample processing (e.g., multispectral approaches or lab-on-a-chip technologies).
5. In situ sample analysis for purposes of human health risk reduction to support crewed missions to Mars orbit (e.g., ionizing radiation, materials toxicity, etc). Recommended timing of such measurements is also of interest, as is a potential interaction/encounter with Phobos/Deimos.
6. Concepts for measurements of lower atmosphere winds and densities, either globally or at specific sites to support future landing systems.

Challenge Area 2:  Safe and Accurate Landing Capabilities, Mars Ascent, and Innovative Exploration Approaches —

Near-term examples include, but are not limited to:

7. Concepts to navigate and control entry and landing systems to improve landing accuracy from the current state of the art (~10-km semi-major axis or “miss distance”) to ≤1 km or lower (<100 m).
8. Concepts for low-cost demonstration of aeroassist (aerocapture and EDL) technologies scalable to future human mission applications (e.g., large rigid aeroshells, inflatable aeroshells, supersonic retro-propulsion).
9. Analyses of interplanetary trajectories from the vicinity of Earth to the Mars system and return that provide significant efficiencies in transportation systems, including delta-V, transit time, cost, etc. This includes a variety of Mars orbits and possible rendezvous with or landing on Phobos/Deimos, and a particular interest in analyses of trajectories of Earth-Moon L2 to the Mars system, and return.
10. Concepts for public-private partnerships to provide infrastructure, services, instruments, or investigation platforms that can lower the cost and/or risk of future Mars exploration.
11. Lightweight, low-cost, probes or platforms (single or multiple), suitable to be carried by larger orbital or landed vehicles (“mother-ships”).
12. Systems that enable low cost access to the surface of Mars at or below the current Discovery mission cost cap.

Mid- to longer-term examples include, but are not limited to:

13. Game-changing technologies for ascent systems (e.g., new propulsion systems or propellants) from the surface of Mars to radically reduce mass or volume and/or improve ability to withstand long-term storage on the planet’s surface.
14. Lightweight, low-cost concepts for vehicle-to-vehicle detection and orbit determination of objects in Mars orbit (in support of rendezvous and docking/capture).
15. High-reliability sample return capsules suitable for Earth entry, with special attention on assured containment of returned samples, and preservation of sample integrity.

Challenge Area 3:  Mars Surface System Capabilities —

Near-term examples include, but are not limited to:

16. Low-cost or improved performance in Mars surface mobility, e.g., long-range/fast-rate mobility for lighter rover systems to increase range/radius of mobility for smaller systems, access at or beyond the angle of repose (near vertical or cliff- or crater-wall access, low ground-pressure systems on unconsolidated material), long-range navigation of rovers on the surface of Mars, localization, autonomous, and relative (to/from hub) surface navigation.
17. Advanced spacecraft subsystems (e.g., power systems, avionics, thermal control) that reduce cost and/or risk, reduce mass, or enable new and unique investigations.

Mid- to longer-term examples include, but are not limited to:

18. Concepts for systems to manipulate rock and regolith for acquisition, transfer/handling, and storage/preservation of surface, near-surface, or subsurface material. System capabilities could range in scale from samples for in situ analysis and caching (from ~half-dozen to ~a couple dozen preserved samples) to quantities required for resource extraction.  (Note that concepts regarding core sample collection, handling, caching, and contamination control will likely be subject to competitive procurement opportunities by NASA in the near future).
19. Concepts for in situ resource utilization (ISRU) to enable robotic ascent of samples for return to Earth or other science purposes that also serve as demonstration for future ISRU support for human surface exploration purposes. May include concepts for the extraction and long-term storage of oxygen and/or hydrogen from in situ martian resources in (a) the martian atmosphere; (b) hydrated minerals and regolith at the martian surface; or (c) access to and extraction from surface, near-surface, or subsurface ice(s).

Following the opening plenary session, the workshop will consist of brief (10 minutes, including clarifying discussion) oral presentation of concepts and ideas to be given at the appropriate working group sessions for the specific areas. All the concepts and ideas presented will be considered and evaluated in the respective working group. Working groups associated with the challenge areas will meet on the first two days of the workshop. Summary reports from the working groups will be presented by the working group chairs in the plenary session on the last day of the meeting. A summary report will be delivered to NASA immediately following the workshop.