SESSION 1:

Here is a summary of the ideas and questions that were addressed in the Mars 2018 Rover scenario team:

(Please team-member fill free to correct/add to this summary, or comment it)

GOALS OF OUR TEAM:

- Define landing site selection wrt to other rover missions? (MSR, MSL)

• o Will MSR go at the same site? Should we integrate MSR engineering & science criteria in the landing site selection?

• o Should we consider the possibility to go at the same site as MSL?

- Define the programing of the mission (MAX-C & EXM)? => NO

- Define what is required for the science (science criteria, geologic diversity…)

- Define what is required for the engineering? (for landing, for driving)

=> to generate eventually recommendations for landing site selection

QUESTIONS RAISED DURING THE SESSION:

- Is the NASA process acceptable for ESA/European scientists?

- How the Europeans will be involved in the selection? (funding to go to meetings, to get CDP?) => Joint steering committee, with meetings in US & EU

- Possibility to land in different places for MAX-C and EXM?

- Programming joint operations MAX-C & EXM? - How to gather people (in EU) into the process?

- Should we consider integrating eventually TGO results for the selection?

SESSIONS 2 and 3:

SCIENCE OBJECTIVES OF THE MISSION:

- Past or present signs of life

- Understand the habitability/geological context

ENGINEERING OBJECTIVES OF THE MISSION:

- Demonstration of drilling

- Demonstration of mobility

- Making a lander/rover work on Mars with sample collection

How these objectives translate into the landing site selection?

Science criteria for the landing site:

- Seeking for present life? What does it mean for landing site selection? => would probably be just a plus

- Habitable environment: what does that mean with remote sensing datasets? (results from the International conference for Martian habitability, Lisbon, June 2011?)

• o Liquid water for an extent period of time (enough for chemistry)
  • § Remote sensing: mineralogy, morphology
• o Nutrients (everywhere?): are there better places?

• o Concentration &

• o preservation of biosignatures (from the formation of the rocks until now)
  • § formation of the rocks/sedimentary materials and coexistence of life forms
  • § initial preservation of the life forms (diagenetic effects)
  • § long-term preservation (atmospheric effects, impacts, hydrothermal activity, burial metamorphism…)

- Site with rocks covering a relatively broad geological time period (containing at least Noachian rocks)

- Fresh exposures of ancient material

• => Rely on the E2E-iSAG science criteria (A and B1 mainly)

Engineering criteria for the landing site:

- Altitude: -1km

- Latitude: -5 to 25°N (going to -25° would require hardware changes on EXM)

- Thermal inertia >100

- Dust cover index?

=> resulting in ~7% of Mars’ surface

- Possibility of hazard avoidance to be taken into account

- Slopes? Rocks? Depending on the landing solution and we will need further data about characterization of rover mobility slope performances measured on terrestrial simulants, still TBD.

- No “Go To” site

- Hardness of the rock for drilling