Mars Surveyor Project Landing Site Activities

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Mars Surveyor Project Landing Site Activities

V. C. Gulick / G. Briggs / R. S. Saunders / M. Gilmore / L. Soderblom

The Mars Surveyor Program --now a cooperative program led by NASA and CNES along with other international partners -- is underway. It has the primary science objective of furthering our understanding of the biological potential and possible biological history of Mars and has the complementary objective of improving our understanding of martian climate evolution and planetary history The missions will develop technology and acquire data necessary for eventual human Exploration. Launches of orbiters, landers and rovers will take place in 2001 and in 2003; in 2005 a complete system will be launched capable of returning samples to Earth by 2008. A key aspect of the program is the selection of landing sites. This abstract 1) reports on the status of the landing site selection process that begins with the 2001 lander mission and 2) outlines be opportunities for the Mars community to provide input into the landing site selection process.