UREY, a proposed NASA Mars Scout mission will, for the first time, measure the absolute age of an identified igneous rock formation on Mars. By extension to relatively older and younger rock formations dated by remote sensing, these results will enable a new and better understanding of Martian geologic history. Thus, Mars will join the Earth and the Moon as the third body in the Solar System for which absolute dating has been accomplished.This revolutionary science mission can be accomplished within the Mars Scout programmatic boundaries because of both extensive heritage and innovative technology.The heritage includes the interplanetary carrier stage, the Mars direct-entry system, the Mars lander, and the Mars rover that had been planned for the Mars 2001 mission before it was cancelled. Urey innovations include two ongoing technology developments that can support a revolutionary science approach. First, miniaturizing of instruments to measure K and 40Ar has proceeded sufficiently to allow in situ dating. Second, the ultrasonic drill, which has been under development at Jet Propulsion Laboratory for several years, can be carried on an existing small rover with design and operational heritage from the Mars Pathfinder mission. The rover's mobility is important because it can carry the drill from the landing site to a remote bedrock location where it can acquire a pristine sample by drilling into that bedrock. The rover will return the sample to the lander for analysis. These in situ analyses will produce new data about Mars chronology, geology, petrology, and chemistry that will significantly change our understanding of the history of the red planet.
The EPOXI and Stardust NExT missions were missions of opportunity utilizing the Deep Impact and Stardust spacecraft, respectively. These new missions took advantage of the cost savings of utilizing spacecraft that were already flying for new science investigations. Both were retargeted to fly by an additional comet. EPOXI visited Hartley 2, significantly smaller than the other Jupiter family comets visited previously. Stardust NExT flew by Tempel 1, providing a second look at the comet previously studied by Deep Impact in 2005. Both projects were part of NASA's Discovery Program. In order to further save costs, the projects were combined into a single project office at JPL. This provided some efficiencies due to the similarity of the missions, but having the flybys space only three months apart posed challenges for the project management team to ensure each project was ready for its critical event and ensuring each received the proper support from the management team. The project office relied on an integrated calendar for tracking and scheduling meetings, reviews, and other key events. The project management team also coordinated their availability for both projects to maintain involvement with each team to ensure effective risk identification and management.
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