Andrew Peterson

Entry #7
NASA Announces Mars 2020 Rover Payload to Explore the Red Planet as Never
Before

By: Dwayne Brown

Published: July 31, 2014

http://www.nasa.gov/press/2014/july/nasa-announces-mars-2020-rover-payload-to-
explore-the-red-planet-as-never-before/index.html#.U964xG9X-uY

This article is talking about the unveiling of the new instruments that will be used
on the Mars rover in 2020. It says that they made their selection of seven out of 58
proposals in January from different researchers from all across the world. The article
said, Mars exploration will be this generations legacy, and the Mars 2020 rover will be
another critical step on humans journey to the Red Planet. The article then dove into
the seven different proposed instruments: Mastcam-Z (advanced camera system with
panoramic and zoom capability), SuperCam (provide imaging and chemical composition
to minerals), Planetary Instrument for X-ray Lithochemisty (an X-ray to determine fine
scale elemental composition on Martian surface), SHERLOC (a spectrometer that uses
an ultraviolet laser to detect compounds), Mars Oxygen ISRU Experiment (produce
oxygen from Martian atmospheric carbon dioxide), Mars Environmental Dynamics
Analyzer (provide measurements of temperature, wind speed and pressure), and The
Radar Imager for Mars Subsurface Exploration (ground-penetrating radar for geologic
structure of the subsurface).

I found this article highly interesting because it revealed the new instruments on
the rover. It talked more about how excited they are to get started and that it would cost
about $130 million. But the fact that they are this far along with Mars exploration is
incredible. I didnt understand much about the new instruments, but I could tell that they
are really important to what we are trying to accomplish on Mars. I also found it
interesting that the number of people that submitted ideas was twice as much as it has
been in the past. This means that there are so many more people that are interested in
getting new technology to Mars. Our world obviously wants to know so much more
about the strange red planet right next to us.