Mars Aqueous Chemistry Experiment (MACE)

The concept of an aqueous-based chemical analyzer for Martian surface materials has been demonstrated to be feasible. During the processes of analysis, design, breadboarding, and most importantly, testing, it has become quite apparent that there are many challenges in implementing such a system. Nonetheless, excellent progress has been made and a number of problems which arose have been solved. The ability to conduct this work under a development environment which is separate and which precedes the project-level development has allowed us to find solutions to these implementation realities at low cost. If the instrument had been selected for a mission without this laboratory pre-project work, the costs of implementation would be much higher. In the four areas covered in Sections D, E, F, and G of this Final Report, outstanding progress has been made. There still remains the task of flight-qualifying certain of the components. This is traditionally done under the aegis of a Flight Project, but just as the concept development can be done at much lower cost when kept small and focused, so could the qualification program of critical parts benefit. We recommend, therefore, that NASA consider means of such qualifications and brass-boarding, in advance of final flight development. This is a generic recommendation, but hardware such as the Mars aqueous chemistry experiment (MACE) and other similarly-new concepts are particularly applicable. MACE now has wide versatility, in being able to reliably dispense both liquids and solids as chemical reagents to an entire suite of samples. The hardware and the experiment is much simpler than was developed for the Viking Biology instrument, yet can accomplish all the inorganic chemical measurements that the Viking desing was capable of. In addition, it is much more flexible and versatile to new experiment protocols (and reagents) than the Viking design ever could have been. MACE opens up the opportunity for many different scientific disciplines to design sub- experiments and to benefit from the investigations that can be conducted. In this sense, it will have the value of a facility, although our recommendation would be that it be under the stewardship of a single lead investigator to insure that conflicting requirements not compromise the straight-forward design that have been achieved. MACE is an excellent candidate for upcoming Mars missions, including the Mars Surveyor Program (MSP) lander missions in 2001 and 2003. In addition, it could be used for any mission to the surface of any other planet or planetary body (including small bodies). An important next step is to encourage various investigators to propose specific uses for this experiment that specifically address their major scientific objectives for upcoming missions.