Mars Society UK News Release

Contact : Bo Maxwell, President, Mars Society UK

Date : For immediate Release, 30th December, 2003

Phone : 0709 280 5915

Mars Society Calls for "Mars-Net"

A constellation of sophisticated satellites orbiting Mars could ensure that mysteries of what happened to a robotic mission could be solved and also provide important aid for human missions, according to Mars experts.

Martian exploration has a history of lander mysteries. None of the probes launched by Russia have ever succeeded and more recently the NASA Polar Lander is thought to have crashed but no one knows. Meanwhile the Mars Society continues to have high hopes that either the Mars Express contact on 6th January, or today's last Mars Odyssey overpass of Beagle 2, will detect the British built lander.

Referred to as a ‘Mars-net’, the constellation of high resolution imaging, radar using, Global Positioning System and broadband communication equipped satellites would enable detailed Martian surface analysis to find lost probes and ensure robotic rovers and manned missions knew exactly where they were while sending and receiving large amounts of scientific data.

The Mars Society UK’s panel of Mars experts has concluded, following the difficulties of the Beagle 2 mission, that this is the best solution to the many long term issues of orbiter and lander tracking and in-situ support for the inevitable manned missions. Mars expert panel member and Mars Society UK president, Bo Maxwell said: “We have to have in place technology to ensure these Martian mysteries stop happening and past ones can be solved. Mars cannot remain the solar system's Bermuda triangle. We have the technology to change this situation. A constellation of satellites could ensure the whole Martian surface and low Mars orbit are constantly surveyed.

"One technology that will be useful will arrive in 2005. NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter will arrive equipped with cameras for extreme close-up photography of the Martian surface, to find both water and future landing sites and it has broadband communication capabilities. More NASA missions will follow, culminating around 2014 in a mission to bring Martian rocks back to Earth. Europe is equally as ambitious.

"We know that the European Space Agency, whatever happens to Beagle, wants to return to Mars, with its Aurora programme, first with a rover and then a sample-return mission. Our recommendation of a Martian orbital monitoring and communication infrastructure can only aid the many missions we will see in the decades ahead, including manned missions. We welcome science minister Lord Sainsbury's commitment to a Beagle 3 mission and other robotic endeavours and suggest that Beagle 3's orbiter could be a part of this Mars-net constellation.

"A major challenge with robotic missions is that once the last screw is put in place by an engineer in the ultra clean assembly laboratory human's can only send software and commands to intervene in an emergency. With human missions robots can play a part but astronauts can still take control when things go wrong.

"If Apollo 13 had been unmanned would we know what had happened to it? When Apollo 11's manned lander was approaching the lunar surface one of its alarms went off and pilot Neil Armstrong spotted a large boulder beneath them. His piloting skills and human common sense ensured the alarm was ignored and the boulder avoided and Apollo 11 was a fantastic success because of human involvement and intervention."

Notes for Editors

The Mars Society is a worldwide organisation active in over 40 countries around the world, with many of its members actively engaged in space research and development. The goal of the Society is the human exploration of Mars, and to support this the Society undertakes a wide range of research activities, including the operation of a series of Mars Analogue Research Stations in which teams of scientists and engineers perform real-world field studies into living and working in Mars-type environments. The most recent of these stations will be operated by the Mars Society in Europe, and is to be located in Iceland. The Mars Society is also responsible for the Mars Direct mission proposal which revolutionised world-wide thinking in to how human Mars missions could be undertaken.

 

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