Paper Session III-B - The 1998 Mars Surveyor Lander and Orbiter Project

The Mars Surveyor Program has been developed as an aggressive, but tightly cost-constrained, program to explore Mars over the decade from 1997 through 2006. Small orbiters and landers built by industry will be launched at 26 months intervals dictated by the relative motion of Earth and Mars in their orbits around the sun. These multiple launches of small spacecraft will provide significant science return in a program that is not reliant on the success of any single component or mission. The Mars Surveyor Program for the 1998 Earth-Mars transfer opportunity consists of a lander and an orbiter mission both managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for NASA within the 1998 Mars Surveyor Lander and Orbiter Project organization. The general science theme for the 1998 Surveyor missions is “Volatiles and Climate History.” The orbiter and lander spacecraft will be launched in December 1998 and January 1999 respectively, on separate Med-Lite launch vehicles (Delta 7425 configuration) procured by NASA from McDonnell Douglas. A single system development contract for both the lander and orbite