May 4 2009
From The Space Library
NASA announced that it had selected the two scientific investigations that NASA would undertake in partnership with ESA. NASA and ESA planned to use NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN) of radio telescopes to track part of ESA’s ExoMars mission, scheduled to launch in 2016. ESA’s ExoMars mission consisted of a fixed lander and a rover that would collect soil samples on Mars for detailed analysis. The Lander Radio-Science on ExoMars (LaRa) would relay data from the lander back to the DSN, enabling scientists to measure and to analyze variations in the length of the day and in the location of the planet’s rotational axis. The ExoMars mission data would help researchers further dissect the structure of the Martian interior, including the size of Mars’s core. For the second investigation, named Strofio, ESA and NASA would use a unique mass spectrometer. Part of ESA’s BepiColombo mission, scheduled for launch in 2013, Strofio would determine the mass of atoms and molecules, helping to reveal the composition of Mercury’s atmosphere. NASA had selected LaRa and Strofio from among eight proposals that researchers had submitted in December 2008, in response to NASA’s new Stand Alone Mission of Opportunity (Salmon). NASA had required Salmon proposals to address planetary scientific research objectives for non-agency missions and to accomplish scientific research goals, including data archiving and analysis, for less than US$35 million. Scientists expected LaRa to cost US$6.6 million and Strofio, US$31.8 million.
NASA, “NASA Selects Future Projects To Study Mars and Mercury,” contract release C09-020, 4 May 2009, http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2009/may/HQ_C09_020_NASA_Salmon_Awards.html (accessed 20 June 2011).
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