Mars Surveyor 98

The Mars Surveyor 98 program consists of an orbiter and a lander (launched separately) which will explore the volatiles and climate history on Mars. This is part of the Mars 2001+ program which includes a series of orbiters and landers to be launched every 26 months. The Mars 2001, 2003 and 2005 missions will capitalize on the experience of the Mars PATHFINDER.

Mission Timelines

Dec. 10, 1998 - Mars 98 Orbiter Launch
Sep. 23, 1998 - Mars Orbit
Jan. 03, 1999 - Mars 98 Lander Launch
Dec. 03, 1999 - Mars Landing

NASA IRTF Mission Support

Future missions, including Mars98, 2001 and 2003, will use aerobraking and aerocapture. It is crucial that the amount of dust in the atmosphere be accurately known, because dust inflates the atmosphere and increases the density, critically affecting the aerobraking. Earth-based monitoring of the atmospheric dust content is therefore absolutely essential. It can be done either in the IR (CO band) or in the microwave region.
Monitoring the temperature of the atmosphere is also necessary to support the aerobraking/aerocapture
The Mars Exploration program will complete its atmospheric/meteorology with the 1998 mission. There will be no further weather observations in the Mars program. Study of seasonal, interannual variability must be ground- based. For the longer term, looking toward eventual manned missions, a long baseline of climatological data will be required. Seasonal cycling of Mars polar regions is also important to monitor Study of the volatile cycling of water is also important to monitor

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Last modified: Mar 23, 1998