Aug 10 2000
From The Space Library
NASA's Associate Administrator for Space Science [[Edward J. Weiler] announced that NASA had decided to send two large scientific rovers to Mars in 2003, rather than a single craft. The new plan called for the two craft to launch within weeks of each other, reaching Mars in January 2004 after their respective seven and one-half-month-long journeys. The two 300-pound (136 -kilogram) rovers, exact duplicates of each other and similar to the highly successful Sojourner rover of 1997, would head to different locations on Mars. Mars Program Director G. Scott Hubbard explained that NASA had undertaken an extensive study of the two-rover option, weighing the excellent launch opportunity in 2003 against resource requirements and schedule constraints. The study teams concluded that it would be possible to successfully develop and launch identical packages, and that the new plan would not only double NASA's scientific return but also add resiliency and robustness to the Mars exploration program. Although NASA had yet to select the two landing sites, Mars Program Scientist James B. Garvin suggested that possible locations included those with evidence of the existence of water in the past. Steven W. Squyres of Cornell University, Principal Investigator for the rovers' Athena science package, explained that the goal of each rover would be to learn about ancient water and climate conditions on Mars. Each craft would operate as a robotic field geologist, reading the geological record at its landing site to discover what conditions had formed the local rocks and soils.
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