Two new UA cameras bound for Mars mission

Wildcat File Photo Arizona Summer Wildcat Peter Smith

NASA added two new UA cameras to the Mars Surveyor 2001 mission last week, after Congress kicked in an additional $20 million for what had been an over-budget project.

"We're all much happier than we were two weeks ago," said Sara Smith, assistant information specialist at the Lunar and Planetary Lab. Her father, Peter Smith, heads the team of University of Arizona scientists that will build a microscope camera and robotic arm camera for the mission.

NASA is launching the Mars surveyor 2001 to study the geological history of Mars and search for intelligent life on the planet.

Because of initial cost overruns, NASA had axed a set of experiments and a new rover from the project last month. Instead of a new $47 million rover, NASA's revised plan will use a pre-existing spare model of the Sojourner rover, which traveled to Mars on the 1997 Pathfinder mission.

"In our case, it's not a matter of budget cuts, but [budget] adds," Peter Smith said.

Smith's microscope camera will be part of the project to chemically analyze Martian dust and is part of an instrument cluster called MECA, or Mars Environmental Compatibility Assessment project.

The robotic arm and its camera are not part of MECA, but will scoop up the soil and deliver it to the instrument for study, said Robert Reynolds, a senior staff engineer.

Before the additional funding came through, NASA's initial mission plans did not include Smith's cameras.

Sara Smith called the original designs quite challenging.

"The plans were a bit ambitious," she said.

The rising costs of the project coupled with other programs like the International Space Station forced NASA to make the drastic reductions announced last month - but money was not the only problem.

"It was not just a matter of funding," Peter Smith said. "They found out that the Athena rover would not be ready for the launch."

With the deletion of Athena rover from the mission manifest, a larger landing craft also was scrapped. Instead, NASA will use the same style craft as was used in the Mars Surveyor 1998 mission, Reynolds said.

Using the 1998 lander will make for cramped conditions on the 2001 mission, he added.

"It's not going to be easy fitting all that stuff on the smaller lander," Smith said.

In addition to Smith's team, other UA scientists have been working hard on Mars-related instruments.

UA planetary scientist William Boynton heads a team that is building a $14 million neutron and gamma-ray spectrometer that will map the surface of Mars from a craft that orbits the planet.

The mission payload will also include a $1.1 million generator built by K.R. Sridhar, an UA aerospace and mechanical engineer. The 2.2 pound generator will take in carbon dioxide from the Martian atmosphere and turn it into oxygen.