Donald Savage
Headquarters, Washington, DC                    June 13, 2001
(Phone:  202/358-1547)

Mary Hardin
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA
(Phone:  818/354-0344)

RELEASE: 01-122

NASA SELECTS FIRST MARS SCOUT CONCEPTS FOR FURTHER STUDY

     The ten most promising mission concepts of the 43 
proposed to NASA for possible launch to Mars in 2007 were 
selected today to receive funding for six months of continued 
studies.

Included in the ten concepts selected for study are missions 
to return samples of martian atmospheric dust and gas, 
networks of small landers, orbiting constellations of small 
craft, and a rover that would attempt to establish absolute 
surface ages of rocks and soils.  

NASA plans to evaluate the ten innovative concepts using rapid 
six-month studies as a means for jump-starting the 
identification of new Mars Scout missions that will compete 
for a possible launch in 2007. The proposals were submitted to 
NASA's Mars Exploration Program in the Office of Space Science 
in Washington, DC, in response to a call for proposals in 
March 2001. Those selected will receive up to $150,000 each 
for the study.

"These Scout concepts embody the spirit I first thought about 
more than one year ago, and will enable us to explore the 
diversity of Mars in new ways," said Dr. Ed Weiler, Associate 
Administrator for Space Science. Weiler selected the ten 
winners on the basis of overall scientific merit and potential 
for implementation under a total mission cost cap of $300 
million. 

"All of us in the Mars Program are thrilled with the response 
by the community with such incredible ideas," said Dr. Jim 
Garvin, Lead Scientist for the Mars Exploration Program. 
"These ten mission concepts provide revolutionary new vantage 
points and tools for exploring the new Mars that has emerged 
from the observations of the Mars Global Surveyor."

Next year, NASA plans to initiate a competition for small 
"Scout" missions to the Red Planet to broadly involve the 
scientific and aerospace communities in the Mars Exploration 
Program. "We have used this opportunity to be as inclusive as 
possible to engage the broadest possible cross-section of the 
community," said Orlando Figueroa, Mars Program Director. The 
ten concepts selected today will not be given any advantage in 
that competition.

The selected mission concepts, and the Principal 
Investigators, are:

  *  SCIM (Sample Collection for Investigation of Mars): 
Professor Laurie Leshin, Arizona State University, Tempe. This 
innovative mission would sample atmospheric dust and gas using 
aerogel and use a "free-return trajectory" to bring the 
samples back to Earth.  

  *  KittyHawk: Professor Wendy Calvin, University of Nevada-
Reno. A mission involving three gliders would explore the 
composition and stratigraphy of the walls of Valles Marineris 
in ways not possible for orbiters and landers.

  *  Urey: Dr. Jeff Plescia, U.S. Geological Survey, 
Flagstaff, AZ. A surface rover would allow the absolute ages 
of geological materials to be remotely determined for the 
first time on any planet.

  *  MACO (Mars Atmospheric Constellation Observatory): 
Professor Robert Kursinski, University of Arizona, Tucson. A 
network of micro-satellites as a constellation around Mars 
would characterize the 3-D structure of the atmosphere, giving 
a new look at martian climatology.

  *  Artemis: Professor David Paige, University of California, 
Los Angeles. Three small landers and micro-rovers on the 
martian surface, with two directed to the polar regions, would 
explore the surface and shallow subsurface for water, organic 
materials and climate. 

  *  MEO (Mars Environmental Observer): Dr. M. Janssen, NASA's 
Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, CA. This science 
orbiter would intensively explore the role of water, dust, ice 
and other materials within the martian atmosphere to 
understand parts of the hydrologic cycle. 

  *  Pascal: Dr. Rob Haberle, NASA's Ames Research Center, 
Moffett Field, CA. A network of 24 weather stations on the 
martian surface would provide more than two years of 
continuous monitoring of humidity, pressure and temperature 
and other measurements.

  *  Mars Scout Radar: Dr. Bruce Campbell, Smithsonian 
Institution's National Air and Space Museum, Washington, DC. 
An orbiter mission would use Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) 
imaging to map the surface geomorphology and very shallow 
subsurface (three to five meters deep), to detect buried water 
channels and other features. 

  *  The Naiades: Dr. Bob Grimm, Blackhawk GeoServices, 
Golden, CO.  Four landers will explore for subsurface liquid 
water using a novel low-frequency sounding method.

  *  CryoScout: Dr. Frank Carsey, JPL. This mission, designed 
to use heated water jets to descend through martian polar ice 
caps, could potentially probe to depths of tens to hundreds of 
meters while measuring composition and searching for organic 
compounds.