File:S87 29632marssamplereturn.jpg

English: Exploration Imagery

Series of black and white drawings for an aggressive unmanned exploration of Mars high res (3.3 M) low res (224 K)

S87-29632 (March 18, 1987)--- This series of black and white drawings was done as a result of NASA's adoption of its Advisory Council's recommendation for an aggressive unmanned exploration of Mars. The returnable hardware program is planned as a precursor to a manned exploration of Mars in the next century. The Johnson Space Center in Houston and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena both have task teams outlining preliminary scenarios on how Mars sample-return missions could be flown using launch vehicles expected to be available late in the 1990s. If approved and funded, the Mars-bound spacecraft would be launched in 1998 and return with martian soil, rock and atmosphere samples in the year 2001. The current rover technology includes a stereo camera vision system, sensors, a computer brain, controlled manipulators and a drill system for acquiring samples. The proposed vehicle would have a mass of no more than 700 kilograms (1,540 pounds), be six meters long and two meters across.