Mars 2001: a Mars 96 recovery mission

The involvement of the European scientific community in Mars exploration has been unfortunately impaired by the recent Mars 96 mission failure. A rapid relaunch of the most essential components of the Mars 96 payload is however feasible, due to the availability of spare flight models of the Mars 96 payload instruments. This paper presents the preliminary study led by AEROSPATIALE ESPACE & DEFENSE under CNES supervision of a generic spacecraft which could conceivably be used for a Mars 96 recovery mission. The International Mars Exploration Working Group, during its meeting held December 3, 1996, has recommended to explore the possibilities to "implement at the earliest practical opportunity a recovery orbiter mission, based on scientific priorities and complementary to other approved missions, taking advantage of the existing hardware to the greatest extent possible". This is the framework of the mission presented here which proposes to send 5 spare instruments (OMEGA, SPICAM, HRSC, PFS and WAOSS) of the Mars 96 mission for the Mars 2001 launch window. These complementary instruments have the capability to fully characterise the surface and neutral environment of Mars, to an extent that would allow the entire history of the planet to be described, from geological time scales to variations resulting fi dm the diurnal cycle. The spacecraft concept has been established to reach a cost-effective solution, with a modular solution for flexibility in development activities and a significant growth potential, in order to comply with other future inter-planetary mission requirements. This 1000 Kg class satellite has been planned to operate during I Martian year, on a 300/10000 km elliptical orbit, providing more than 500 Mbit of scientific data per day. (C) 1999 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.