NASA is ready to start the final design and construction of the next probe to hunt for signs of life on the Red Planet now that the Mars 2020 rover already has a target launch and land date.
If everything goes as planned, the six-wheeled probe will leave Earth by August 2020 and will likely touch down on a yet-to-be-determined spot on the Martian surface by February 2021 to search for life over a period of at least two years.
The robot is modeled after the Curiosity rover, which landed on the Red Planet in 2012. Mars 2020, however, will be equipped with better cameras and microphones as well as thicker wheels to prevent it from breaking down just like what happened to Curiosity.
Curiosity experienced glitches during the course of its mission but managed to be in good working condition longer than expected. Earlier this month, the car-sized robotic rover entered in safe mode and stopped all activities after it experienced some errors.
The next Mars rover will also come with a new coring drill and radar that can penetrate the ground to take a peek below the Martian surface.
Because the primary objective of the mission is to seek for signs of life, the probe will also have features that can analyze organic materials, including a device that will test oxygen formation on the planet in preparation for possible colonization in the future.
The rover will also search not just for existing signs of Martian life but of the past using its science equipments. The robot will collect samples from Mars for future delivery to Earth, where scientists can more thoroughly examine them in laboratories.
"The Mars 2020 rover is the first step in a potential multi-mission campaign to return carefully selected and sealed samples of Martian rocks and soil to Earth," said Geoffrey Yoder, from NASAꞌs Science Mission Directorate.
Yoder added that the mission is a significant milestone in the U.S. space agency's journey to the Red Planet in a bid to know if life has ever existed there. It also advances the goal of sending a manned mission to Mars.
The U.S. space agency said that the price tag of the new Mars rover should be about $1.9 billion, which is lesser compared with the cost of the Curiosity mission that fetched $2.5 billion. The savings is due to the 2020 rover being heavily based on Curiosity, which helped save on development costs and manufacturing of parts.