Future Missions

Mars Surveyor '03

Surveyor '03 will be the fourth set of orbiter/lander missions.

Mars Surveyor '03 Orbiter

Little is known about the '03 Orbiter. It will, like the other orbiters, serve as a relay for the lander. The orbiter will launch sometime in 2003.

Mars Surveyor '03 Lander

The lander will carry the third rover, Athena (which had orginally been planned for the 2001 mission), for sample collection. Launch is scheduled for mid-2003.

Athena Rover

The Athena rover will be a large improvement over the Sojourner rover. Its expected lifetime is one year and it can drive 10-20 km. Athena will be the rover which collects soil samples for the Sample Return Mission. The rover will still be tiny, but it contains a wide variety of instruments. These instruments (excluding the Raman Spectrometer and Corer instruments) will be previously flown on the 2001 mission; however, this time, all the instruments will be on the rover.

Science Instruments

The Pancam are 2 high-resolution color stereo cameras located 121 cm high (from ground level) on the antenna mast.
Mini-TES (Mini Thermal Emission Spectrometer), mounted at the bottom of the mast, will use thermal infrared wavelengths to measure mineral composition.

Athena contains an Instrument Arm which holds four instruments:

- APXS (Alpha Proton X-Ray Spectrometer) will find the elemental composition of the surface.
- The Mössbauer Spectrometer looks for iron minerals and magnetic properties.
- The Microscopic Imager images close-ups of rocks that other instruments analyze. It is so powerful that it can detect veins in a rock.
- The Raman Spectrometer will be able to look for signs of life, and to find the composition of mineral grains. It also uses the "Raman scattering" effect to identify minerals.

The Mini-Corer collects the rock samples for the 2005 retrieval. It consists of a drill bit that the rover can replace itself. As the drill bit drills into the soil, the time it takes for it to go in tells the physical properties of the rock. The drill can get nine 5 cm rock samples and empty them into a storage bin. It also collects soil samples and deposits them into one of the 13 sample cups. While the Mini-Corer is sampling, the Instrument Arm can also analyze the rocks.

2005 Mars Sample Return Mission

The Mars Sample Return Mission is long awaited by scientists. In this mission, the lander will land at the '03 lander site. Then, a rover will be deployed to retrieve the soil and rock samples obtained by the previous rover. The rover will return to the lander and launch back to Earth. The whole mission should last from 2005 to 2008.