center on the history of its climate and atmosphere the Red Planet at this moment, they are getting old,
and how that’s influenced the surface, geology and are far beyond their original design lifetimes and suffer
the possibility for life,” said Jakosky.
occasional glitches. And there is no guarantee of
“MAVEN will focus on understanding the history of the continued operation.
atmosphere, how the climate has changed through
“The rovers are presently supported by Mars Odyssey
time, and how that influenced the evolution of the launched in 2001 and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter
surface and the potential for habitability by microbes launched in 2005. Launching MAVEN in 2013 protects
on Mars.”
the existing assets that are at Mars today,” Jakosky told
“We don’t know the driver of the change.”
me.
“Where did the water go and where did the carbon
If Mars Odyssey and/or Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter
dioxide go from the early atmosphere? What were the were to fail, then the rovers mission operations would
mechanisms?”
be severely curtailed and could even be terminated
“That’s what’s driving our exploration of Mars with prematurely - in a worst case scenario.
MAVEN,” said Jakosky
And without MAVEN, there would be no point in
MAVEN carries nine sensors in three instrument launching NASA’s planned 2020 rover since there
suites. The Particles and Fields Package, provided by would be no way to transmit the science data back
the University of California
to Earth.
at Berkeley with support
“There is