National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) just announced the plans for its further exploration of Mars in the following years. They already have a rover that is similar to Curiosity, except this one has more instruments and will be tasked with a different mission.
Construction of the Mars 2020 rover is already underway at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California. They noted that the design is similar to Curiosity and there is a reason for that. For one, 85 percent of the 2020 rover is made up of what they call a "heritage hardware." These are the components that were originally created for the Curiosity.
Nevertheless, the new rover will be equipped with seven new instruments which will help with its twofold mission — to detect ancient life and to go on a "marathon sample hunt."
The first step in trying to find ancient life will be accomplished by examining the terrains that once had rivers and lakes. Most of these terrains are now inhospitable, but the rover's tools will help it detect signs of microbial life.
The Mars 2020 rover will have a precision X-ray spectrometer that can target spots as small as a grain of salt, and an ultraviolet laser that can detect the glow of excited carbon rings. Finally, the rover's deep-penetrating radar will be the first instrument to look under the surface of the Red Planet.
The marathon sample hunt is, simply put, an attempt to collect samples from at least 20 rock cores. The ideal target is 30 to 40 samples, and the rover will try to accomplish this with the help of a drill and a laser that can vaporize rocks.
The JPL is also working on the "cruise" and "descent" components of the new Mars rover. The cruise components will fly the rover through space, and the descent components will have a rocket-powered "sky crane" that will help with the rover's landing.
Three landing sites have already been proposed, and the new Mars rover is expected to launch into space sometime in 2020.
