Mars Astrobiology Explorer Cacher
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| Mission type | Rover |
|---|---|
| Operator | NASA |
| Mission duration | One Earth year (proposed) |
| Spacecraft properties | |
| Launch mass | 300 kg (660 lb) |
The Mars Astrobiology Explorer-Cacher (MAX-C), also known as Mars 2018 mission was a NASA concept for a Mars rover mission, proposed to be launched in 2018 together with the European ExoMars rover. The MAX-C rover concept was cancelled in April 2011 due to budget cuts.
The rover would have been solar powered, with a maximum mass of 300 kg and based largely on the Curiosity rover components, but would have entailed a system tailored to the specific payload. The MAX-C rover would have performed an in-situ astrobiological exploration, evaluate the habitability potential of various Martian environments, and it would have collected, documented, and cached samples for potential return to Earth by a future mission.
The essential energy, water, and nutrient requirements to support and sustain life on Mars are currently present, and the Martian geologic record offers tantalizing clue of many ancient habitable environments. If life emerged and evolved on early Mars then it is possible, and indeed likely, that physical or chemical biosignatures are preserved in the exposed rock record. These discoveries and inferences make a compelling case for a rover mission designed to explore for evidence of past Martian life.
For over a decade, the Mars Exploration Program has pursued a strategy of "follow the water". While this strategy has been highly successful in the Mars missions of 1996-2007, it is increasingly appreciated that assessing the full astrobiological potential of Martian environments requires going beyond the identification of locations where liquid water was present. Thus, in order to seek signs of past or present life on Mars, it is necessary to characterize more comprehensively the macroscopic and microscopic fabric of sedimentary materials. This type of information would be critical to select and cache of relevant samples for addressing the life question in samples intended for study in sophisticated laboratories on Earth.
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