ESA: ExoMars 2018 landing site

[MargaritaMc]

FOUR CANDIDATE LANDING SITES FOR EXOMARS 2018

Four possible landing sites are being considered for the ExoMars mission in 2018. Its rover will search for evidence of martian life, past or present.

ExoMars is a joint two-mission endeavour between ESA and Russia’s Roscosmos space agency. The Trace Gas Orbiter and an entry, descent and landing demonstrator module, Schiaparelli, will be launched in January 2016, arriving at Mars nine months later. The Rover and Surface Platform will depart in May 2018, with touchdown on Mars in January 2019.
...

Click to view full size image

The sites – Mawrth Vallis, Oxia Planum, Hypanis Vallis and Aram Dorsum – are all located relatively close to the equator.

“The present-day surface of Mars is a hostile place for living organisms, but primitive life may have gained a foothold when the climate was warmer and wetter, between 3.5 billion and 4 billion years ago,” says Jorge Vago, ESA’s ExoMars project scientist.

“Therefore, our landing site should be in an area with ancient rocks where liquid water was once abundant. Our initial assessment clearly identified four landing sites that are best suited to the mission’s scientific goals.”

More details at:

http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space ... oMars_2018

[bystander]

Landing Site Selected for UK ExoMars Rover
UK Space Agency | 2018 Nov 09

Due to land in 2021, the ExoMars rover will be the first of its kind to travel across the Martian surface and drill down to determine if evidence of life is buried underground. ...

Both of the potential landing sites – Oxia Planum and Mawrth Vallis – preserve a rich record of geological history from the planet’s wetter past, approximately four billion years ago, however the potential for science return had to be balanced with the prospect of landing safely. ...

After over 4 years of careful study of HiRISE and more recently CaSSIS images Oxia Planum was chosen because scientists were convinced that its fine grained sediments, deposited during the ancient Noachian epoch were ideally suited for the Exobiology rover. ...