NASA says the next rover on Mars, heading for the Red Planet in 2020, will be equipped with better cameras, more refined lasers, and will even have the capability of looking underground.
Aside from the instrument upgrades, the as-yet unnamed vehicle, for now just referred to as the Mars 2020 rover, will be a clone of the space agency's Curiosity rover now conducting scientific exploration on the surface of Mars.
Using a tried-and-true design -- NASA already has a spare rover it can use -- as the basis of the next exploration effort will save money as tight budgets impact its missions, NASA officials said in announcing the new rover's instruments.
"While getting to and landing on Mars is hard, Curiosity was an iconic example of how our robotic scientific explorers are paving the way for humans to pioneer Mars and beyond," says NASA Administrator Charles Bolden.
"Mars exploration will be this generation's legacy, and the Mars 2020 rover will be another critical step on humans' journey to the Red Planet."
A featured goal of the Mars 2020 mission will be the identification and selection of soil and rock samples to be collected and stored for possible return to Earth by a subsequent mission, NASA says.
Among the upgrades for the upcoming rover is an improved camera system, Mastcam Z, which will take pictures at multiple wavelengths to capture details of the Martian surface that would normally be invisible to the eye. It will also have the ability to zoom in, something none of the multiple cameras on Curiosity are capable of.
A new laser will zap small pieces of rocks found on the Red Planet and then examine the smoke and vapor created, again at multiple wavelengths, to better understand the rocks' mineral composition.
NASA scientists are particularly enthusiastic about an instrument on the upcoming rover dubbed the Mars Oxygen ISRU Experiment, or MOXIE, designed to gather carbon dioxide in the Martian atmosphere and then break it down to liberate pure oxygen.
It will be an initial test of in situ resource utilization (ISRU) that may one day help astronauts on Mars produce breathable gases or create rocket fuel for their return to Earth.
Finally, the next rover won't be limited to what it can see or investigate on the Red Planet's surface, NASA says, because it will be equipped with ground-penetrating radar that will let it scan the interior of Mars as deep as a third of a mile below ground.
"The Mars 2020 rover, with these new advanced scientific instruments, including those from our international partners, holds the promise to unlock more mysteries of Mars' past as revealed in the geological record," says John Grunsfeld, astronaut and associate administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. "This mission will further our search for life in the universe and also offer opportunities to advance new capabilities in exploration technology."
