NASA announced today that its next Mars rover will have advanced cameras, more sophisticated lasers, and the ability to see underground as it explores the Red Planet starting in 2020.
The mission, currently being called the Mars 2020 rover (until NASA can give it a better name), is a twin of the Curiosity rover currently on Mars. This duplication allows NASA to save money because they already had a spare machine sitting around, but Mars 2020 won’t just be carrying repeats of Curiosity's state-of-the-art gadgets. Instead, the probe will be building on the scientific discoveries from Curiosity, preparing to return samples of Mars to Earth, and even paving the way for future human exploration. Here’s a breakdown of all the rover's new gear.
First up is the new rover’s souped-up camera system called Mastcam-Z, a multispectral binocular imager. We’re all used to the incredible photos that Curiosity sends back but this new camera will be able to shoot pictures in multiple wavelengths, allowing scientists to see things that would otherwise be invisible to our eyes. It will also be able to zoom, an ability that Curiosity's 17 cameras sadly lack, which will make it possible for the rover to rapidly map out its surroundings, build terrain models, and plot out its path on Mars.
Just like Curiosity, Mars 2020 will be carrying a laser that it will use to shoot unsuspecting rocks. But NASA is promising that the new rover’s laser will be even better than Curiosity’s. Called SuperCam, the instrument will incinerate small bits of rocks on the ground and then analyze the resulting vapor to determine their composition. Curiosity’s ChemCam instrument does a similar job, but Supercam will have the ability to examine the smoke in multiple wavelengths, including visible and infrared (thus the rainbow nickname), that will give it a better understanding of the types of minerals around it. This will help the science team decide whether or not certain rocks are better to investigate further, and which ones to take samples from.
As part of NASA’s efforts to bring humans to Mars, the new rover has Mars Oxygen ISRU Experiment (MOXIE), a tool that can extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and break it apart to produce pure oxygen. This will be the first test of what’s known as in situ resource utilization---essentially using the stuff around you to live off the land---and could help astronauts produce breathable gases or rocket fuel on a future mission.
Mars 2020 will have a weather station called Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer (MEDA) that will record the local temperature, humidity, pressure, and wind speed. This instrument will also study dust in the atmosphere, analyzing its size and shape, another important part of one day sending humans, who will have to find a way to avoid getting their gear contaminated with this potentially lethal stuff.
The new rover will have the awesome ability to see underground on Mars, using its ground-penetrating radar. Known as Radar Imager for Mars' Subsurface Exploration (RIMFAX), this instrument will scan up to a third of a mile beneath the surface as the rover travels around. Mars 2020 will be able to resolve objects as small as an inch or two in size, giving scientists a glimpse of what goes on deep below their rover's wheels.
NASA will be sending its new rover with an X-ray fluorescence spectrometer called the Planetary Instrument for X-ray Lithochemistry (PIXL) that can map out each element in a particular rock. This will allow geologists to look figure out what kind of minerals are in a rock sample. Because microbes need certain materials to thrive, these minerals could indicate places where we are more likely to find evidence of past life.
Finally, Mars 2020 will be carrying an instrument called Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals (SHERLOC), which will use an ultraviolet laser to scan for organic molecules. Also able to give a very detailed look at the mineralogy of rocks, SHERLOC will complement the X-ray abilities of PIXL. The science team is particularly interested in making sure that its instrument’s capabilities have some overlap, so that they can check and double-check their work.
Though not a particular instrument, the new rover will be using all its sophisticated apparatuses to figure out what are the best rock samples for scientists back on Earth to study in more detail. It will use a drill to place around 30 pencil-sized rock cylinders inside of sealed canisters. One day, a future mission could pick up these jars and return them to our planet, fulfilling a dream that the planetary science community has long hoped for and giving them the chance to analyze recent pieces of Mars up close.
