20 – Mars2020 Landing Site Candidates
Jake explores the three candidate landing sites NASA is considering for the upcoming Mars 2020 rover.
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Show Notes
Ahead of the science, the surface operations, the tricky landing, interplanetary cruise, & launch of a NASA flagship class rover like Mars2020, the difficult decision of where to send the mission must be made. For the successor of Curiosity, this process is nearing completion as the 3rd workshop has narrowed the remaining candidates to three. Jake takes a long look at the mission requirements, landing site criteria, and Mars mapping techniques before exploring Jezero Crater, North East Syrtis and Gusev Crater to see what secrets might lie beneath the regolith.
Links
The Mars2020 Mission
- Landing Site Workshop Page
- Science Objectives
- Landing Site Criteria (Bottom of page)
Mapping Mars
The Landing Sites
- Google Mars KMZ file to explore the landing ellipses on Google Earth
Jezero Crater
- Jezero HIRISE image
- SETI Talk with Tim Goudge (53:37), who led the Jezero team’s presentation
North East Syrtis
Gusev Crater/Columbia Hills
WeMartians music is “RetroFuture” and “Electrodoodle” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/