The launch of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory is being delayed until a planetary opportunity in 2011. The mission had been slated to launch in October 2009.NASA Administrator Mike Griffin said the agency is wrestling with technical problems with small motors that that will drive the rover's six wheels and move the wrist, elbow and shoulder joints of the craft's robotic arm.
Aeroflex Inc. of Plainview, N.Y., is running behind schedule on the production of the complex motors - some of which have as many as 600 individual parts.
NASA in October said manufacturing would have to be sped up to make the 2009 or 2011 window. Software and other test programs also would have to be accelerated, but the costs involved remained unclear.
Griffin said the problems with the actuators and the required testing needed to ensure mission success could not be completed in time to meet the planetary window in 2009. Earth and Mars will not be properly aligned for the trip again until 2011. The window then will open in October 2011 and close in December that year.
NASA Science Mission Chief Ed Weiler said the delay will enable NASA to avoid a "mad rush to launch." NASA Mars Project Executive Doug McCuistion said the delay was "absolutely the right thing to do" with a flagship mission that costs as much as the Mars Science Laboratory.
The delay will add $400 million to the cost of the mission -- or about 15 percent of the total cost, which now will rise to between $2.2 billion and $2.3 billion.
The original advertised mission cost in August 2006 was $1.63 billion. Subsequent problems prompted a cost increase to $1.88 billion.
It would have cost $200 million to accelerate actuator development and production to make the 2009 window, but NASA decided that would significantly reduce the chance of success on what will be the most complex Mars mission ever launched.
About the size of an SUV, NASA's Mars Science Laboratory will be equipped with the most sophisticated suite of instruments ever delivered to the surface of another planet. Its chief goal: to determine whether Mars is, or ever was, capable of supporting microbial life.
In other news: Weiler said NASA and the European Space Agency have decided to merge their Mars exploration programs and develop a joint Mars mission architecture. The idea is to combine resources and expertise to develop missions that would lead to a Mars Sample Return around 2020.
The first U.S.-European Mars mission could come as early as 2016.
ABOUT THE IMAGE: Click to enlarge and save the NASA image of a prototype of the Mars Science Laboratory being tested in a "rover yard" in California. You can also click the enlarged image for an even bigger view.
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