Review of the Next Decade Mars Architecture

Project Scope

An ad hoc committee under the auspices of the Space Studies Board's Committee on Planetary and Lunar Exploration will undertake a study to review and evaluate the revised program architecture for the Next Decade of Mars robotic exploration in a time frame to support re-approval of the program by NASA in the summer of 2006. Specifically, the committee will address the following questions: (1) Is the revised Next Decade architecture responsive to recent findings from the current missions? (2) Does the revised Next Decade architecture address the goals of NASA's Mars Program, and optimize the science return given the current fiscal posture of the Program? (3) Does the architecture represent a reasonably balanced mission portfolio? (4) Is the architecture reflective of the strategies, priorities and guidelines put forward by the NRC solar system exploration decadal survey and related science strategies?   Assessment of NASA's Mars Architecture 2007-2016