Field and laboratory validation of remote rover operations Science Team findings: The CanMars Mars Sample Return analogue mission

Abstract

20 The CanMars Mars Sample Return Analogue Deployment (MSRAD) was a closely 21 simulated end-to-end Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission scenario, with instrumentation, goals, 22 and constraints modeled on the upcoming NASA Mars 2020 rover mission. The exercise utilized 23 the CSA Mars Exploration Science Rover (MESR) rover, deployed to Utah, USA, at a Mars-24 analogue field site. The principal features of the field site located near Green River, Utah, are 25 Late Jurassic inverted, fluvial paleochannels, analogous to features on Mars in sites being 26 considered for the ESA ExoMars rover mission and present within the chosen landing site for the 27 Mars 2020 rover mission. The in-simulation ("in-sim") mission operations team worked 28 remotely from The University of Western Ontario, Canada. A suite of MESR-integrated and 29 hand-held spectrometers was selected to mimic those of the Mars 2020 payload, and a Utah-30 to those of Mars rover landing sites, and in-depth field studies like CanMars as important, pre-48 mission strategic exercises. 49 50 Keywords: Mars, rover, analogue mission, sample return, mission operations 51 52 evidence for past life or its chemical precursors, and place detailed constraints on the past 64 habitability and the potential for preservation of the signs of life". A primary outcome of the 65CanMars analogue mission was the development of specific protocols and analytical approaches 66 geared at achieving the three highest priority MSR science sub-objectives identified by MEPAG; 67 namely: 1) Identify environments that were habitable in the past, and characterize conditions and 68 processes that may have influenced the degree or nature of habitability therein; 2) Assess the 69 potential of conditions and processes to have influenced preservation or degradation of 70 biosignatures and evidence of habitability, from the time of formation to the time of observation. 71

Combined Spectroscopic Analysis of Terrestrial Analogs from a Simulated Astronaut Mission Using the Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) Raman Sensor: Implications for Mars

“…The aforementioned tasks on terrestrial analogs are not only limited to the topics of geology and astrobiology but also encompass a broad set of interdisciplinary areas of research in physics, engineering, astronautics, and medicine, to list a few examples. The plans for future exploration in simulated analog missions to Mars covers: 4,29,[31][32][33][34] (i) psychology and group dynamics activities; (ii) instrument and technology testing in analog environments; (iii) communications and computing systems for planetary exploration; (iv) telemedicine and operational space medicine simulations; (v) robot-human interactions during extravehicular activities (EVA) activities; (vi) mission control operations and pre-, during-, and post-mission science operations; and (vii) field training operations, including training simulated astronauts. Correspondingly, we will be concentrating on the instrument and technology testing in analog environments.…”

“…Indeed, finding signs of life often requires understanding the surrounding environment with corresponding inferences made available through planetary geochemistry. 3,4 Various spectroscopic techniques have been proposed and largely embraced by the scientific community for such analyses; however, despite the overwhelming success of these methods, it is not always well understood how they can function synergistically while complying with payload and operational constraints. A key priority, therefore, and one which we address at length in this work, is to establish how various methods of analysis can complement each other.…”

GRaVN: A Convolutional Network Approach to Generalised Characterisation of Raman Spectra for Space Exploration

“…In the case of Raman data validation, to be competent takes skill, patience and experience. Also with the requirement of analogue missions to maintain fidelity to real planetary surface operations, data can only be reviewed intermittently (during communication cycles), and bandwidth is limited [2,5,42,45]. So, in this case, the "best" option is to send all collected data back for further processing and have a trained technician perform data validation before then continuing on to extract science.…”

Raman analyses of Al and Fe/Mg‐rich clays: Challenges and possibilities for planetary missions

“…Amongst the current Mars analogue collections, samples containing clays that have been documented with Raman spectroscopy often consist of specimens from hydrothermal environments [33][34][35][36] and sedimentary-volcanic environments. [37][38][39][40] While the Raman characterisation of these samples is found to be effective for the identification of accessory minerals such as sulfates, carbonates and (Ti-)oxides, the identification of phyllosilicates (the main constituent in clays) is less straightforward. The phyllosilicates identified by Raman spectroscopy in analogue samples are often limited to muscovite, 33,39,41 kaolinite, 33 montmorillonite, 37,38 chlorites, 39,41 talc 41,42 or serpentines.…”