No news in this regard but one of my favourite scientific topics, the Mars Science Laboratory:
This beast will be the new generation Mars Rover originally dubbed the Mars Science Laboratory and now known as Curiosity. It will be launched in November 2011 and will land in August 2012.
It is over 5 times as heavy as the previous mars rovers and carries more than 10 times the weight in scientific instruments.
Mock-ups for size comparison (Sojourner is the little tiny guy, the current rovers are the medium-sized and the huge one is Curiosity):
Curiosity has a big advantage over the current generation of rovers in that it does NOT rely on solar power.
Curiosity will have a Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator(RTG) which will provide not only round-the-clock and round-the-calendar power for Curiosity but also the waste heat from the generator will be used to keep its instruments warm so it does not have to waste power on that task. Curiosity's RTG will also produce four times the power of the current generation rovers and the RTG will have a minimum lifespan of 14 years.
Curiosity will be much faster, able to cover 90m/hr with an expected average cruise speed of 30m/hr. The maximum speed of the current rovers is about 30m/hr although they are much slower in actuality.
Curiosity will also be able to roll over obstacles up to 2.5 feet tall.
Its primary objectives are as follows:
- Determine the nature and inventory of organic carbon compounds.
- Inventory the chemical building blocks of life as we know it: carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulfur.
- Identify features that may represent the effects of biological processes.
- Investigate the chemical, isotopic, and mineralogical composition of the Martian surface and near-surface geological materials.
- Interpret the processes that have formed and modified rocks and soils.
- Assess long-timescale (i.e., 4-billion-year) Martian atmospheric evolution processes.
- Determine present state, distribution, and cycling of water and carbon dioxide.
- Characterize the broad spectrum of surface radiation, including galactic radiation, cosmic radiation, solar proton events and secondary neutrons.
The mission has a planned length of 2 years with minimum life expectancy of the RTG of 14 years. (Current rovers had a planned mission length of just 3 months and they have been in operation for over 6 years. Although Spirit has not been heard from since March and may be dead, Opportunity is still in good working order.)
The
Canadian Space Agency will be providing one of the instruments for Curiosity, its Alpha-particle X-ray Spectrometer which will allow it to determine the elemental composition of samples.