Free Astronomy Magazine January-February 2020

43 JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2020 ASTRONAUTICS for the human exploration of Mars, taking advantage of the technological experience gained through robotic missions. Regardless of the levels of climate and ge- ology knowledge that will be attained in the coming years, it is easy to predict that the timing of the human exploration of Mars will be determined by the results ob- tained within the first goal of the explo- ration program. Until we have very convincing clues of the possible absence of life on Mars, it is un- likely that astronauts will be sent to perform activities that machines can already do with lower costs, fewer risks and in less time. If instead, in the near future, a robot discovers fossil traces of possible biological activities, human mission planning would then un- dergo a rapid acceleration. The next Mars Exploration Program mis- sion, temporarily called Mars 2020, could be discriminating in this regard. It will be launched next July and will reach its desti- nation in February 2021. The protagonist will be a new rover, derived from the Cu- riosity project (with which it will share many components), but further developed and equipped with cutting-edge research instruments, including a core drill and a small helicopter similar to a drone. The substantial difference between the Curiosity rover and the one for Mars 2020 is the fact that the latter, through the SHERLOC spectrometer (Scanning Habit- able Environments with Raman and Lumi- nescence for Organics and Chemicals), will be able to both identify a series of biosig- natures typical of microbial life and to as- sess the conditions of habitability in the history of the planet. I n the diagram below, some in- struments with which the Mars 2020 rover will analyze the sur- face of Jezero Crater are high- lighted. [NASA/ JPL-Caltech]