NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION 
 

MARS SURVEYOR ‘98   PARTICIPATING SCIENTIST  
 

ANNOUNCEMENT OF OPPORTUNITY 
 

PROPOSAL INFORMATION PACKAGE

TABLE OF CONTENTS

      page 
 

1.0  INTRODUCTION 3

      1.1  Document Overview 3

      1.2  Mars Surveyor Program 3

1.3  Mars Surveyor ‘98 Operations Management 5

1.4  MCO Payload Overview  6

1.5  MPL Payload Overview 7 
 

2.0  MISSION SCIENCE 9

2.1  Mars Surveyor 1998 Mission Strategy 9

2.2  Mars Surveyor 1998 Mission Measurement Objectives 10 
 

3.0  MISSION PHASES 11

3.1  Landing Site Adjustment Maneuver 13

3.2  MCO Orbital Insertion and Aerobraking 13

3.3  MPL Entry, Descent and Landing 15

3.4  MPL Landed Operations 15

3.5 MCO Lander Support Phase 18

3.6  MCO Mapping Mission 18 
 

4.0  SCIENCE INVESTIGATIONS:   MARS CLIMATE ORBITER 21

4.1 Pressure Modulator Infrared Radiometer (PMIRR) 21

4.2 Mars Color Imager (MARCI) 24 
 

5.0  SCIENCE INVESTIGATIONS:  MARS POLAR LANDER 26

5.1  Mars Descent Imager (MARDI) 26

5.2 Mars Volatiles and Climate Surveyor (MVACS) 26

5.2.1 Surface Stereo Imager (SSI) 27

5.2.2 Robotic Arm (RA); Robotic Arm Camera (RAC), Surface Thermal Probe (STP) 27

5.2.3 Meteorological Package (MET) 28

5.2.4  Thermal and Evolved Gas Analyzer (TEGA) 29

5.2.5  Potential Areas of Emphasis for Participating Scientists with MVACS 30

5.3 LIDAR 30 
 
 

1.0   INTRODUCTION 
 
 

1.1   Document Overview 
 

This Proposal Information Package (PIP) document provides information describing the Mars Surveyor 1998 Mission, which includes activities associated with both the Mars Climate Orbiter (MCO) and the Mars Polar Lander (MPL).  This PIP is provided in support of the Mars Surveyor ‘98 (MS’98) Announcement of Opportunity for Participating Scientists (AO 99-OSS-02). 
 
 

1.2   Mars Surveyor Program 
 

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has initiated a long-term systematic program of Mars exploration, the Mars Surveyor Program (MSP).  The highest priority scientific objectives of this program are to: 
 

• Search for evidence of past or present life;
• Understand the climate and volatile history of Mars;
• Assess the nature and inventory of resources on Mars.

The common thread of these objectives is water:  past and present sources and sinks; exchanges between subsurface, surface and atmospheric reservoirs; and the change of volatiles over time. 
 

The goal of the MSP is to carry out low-cost missions, each of which provides important, focused, scientific return, and which will in sum constitute a major element of the scientific exploration of Mars.  A series of lander and orbiter spacecraft are being launched at each favorable Mars launch opportunity, which occur approximately every 26 months.  In 1997 the MSP launched the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS), which together with the launch of the Discovery Program’s Mars Pathfinder lander, initiated the new era of Mars exploration.   
 

In the 1998-1999 launch opportunity, the MSP successfully launched the following spacecraft, which are now in flight to Mars: 
 

• Mars Climate Orbiter (MCO) launched on December 11, 1998
• Mars Polar Lander (MPL) launched on January 3, 1999. 

The Mars Polar Lander also carries two New Millennium Program (NMP) microprobes as the Deep Space 2 (DS2) Mission.  These probes will separate from MPL prior to its entry into the Martian atmosphere, then fall through the atmosphere (without parachutes or rockets to slow their entry) and crash into the surface, with the probe forebodies penetrating up to a meter deep into the Mars surface.  A Science Team has been previously selected for the DS2 mission and no participation is solicited here.    However, the short-lived DS2 probes will be located approximately 100 km further north (equatorward) of the MPL touchdown point and will themselves search for the presence of subsurface water ice and attempt to characterize subsurface soil thermal properties.  Thus, complementary data will be obtained by the DS2 and MPL surface packages (and by MCO and MGS). 
 

Future missions will culminate in the return of samples of Martian rocks and soil to Earth.  The focus of the MS’98 element of the MSP is to advance our understanding of the volatile and climate history of Mars through systematic mapping of the Mars seasonal cycles of weather, dust, water and carbon dioxide by remote sensing from orbit and through exploration in situ at a landed site on the layered terrain near the Martian south pole.   
 

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