NASA delayed the Mars Science Laboratory mission until 2011, due to technical challenges and the necessity to perform more testing. The rover was initially scheduled to launch next fall, however, in order to make the mission a success, that needed to be postponed.

The agency explained that 2011 will be the next feasible launch date after 2009, since the Earth and Mars only position themselves favorably once every two years, creating a launch window of just a few weeks.

“We will not lessen our standards for testing the mission’s complex flight systems, so we are choosing the more responsible option of changing the launch date,” said Doug McCuistion, director of the Mars Exploration Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

The Mars Science Laboratory is the most ambitious and complex project to date, and is intended to reach regions other rovers had no access to, but also provide new information on the habitability of the Red Planet.

The mission is expected to last one Mars year – approximately two Earth years, enough to evaluate the characteristics of the Mars environment. The rover will carry 10 times the load of Spirit and Opportunity, with the most advanced instruments, but also a complex sample acquisition, processing and distribution system.

According to JPL, the mission has four primary objectives: the first is to assess the biological potential of at least one target environment by determining the nature and inventory of organic carbon compounds, searching for the chemical building blocks of life, and identifying features that may record the actions of biologically relevant processes.

The second objective is to characterize the geology of the landing region at all appropriate spatial scales by investigating the chemical, isotopic, and mineralogical composition of surface and near-surface materials, and interpreting the processes that have formed rocks and soils.

The third objective is to investigate planetary processes of relevance to past habitability (including the role of water) by assessing the long timescale atmospheric evolution and determining the present state, distribution, and cycling of water and CO2.

And the fourth primary objective is to characterize the broad spectrum of surface radiation, including galactic cosmic radiation, solar proton events, and secondary neutrons.

The rover will be faster than its predecessors, being expected to travel up to 30 meters per hour (with a maximum of 90 meters per hour), and will be able to investigate areas with rougher terrain, thanks to a new technology that allows it to roll over obstacles up to 75 centimeters high.

The launch site is yet to be announced, but NASA is considering four possibilities: Eberswalde, where an ancient river deposited a delta in a possible lake; Gale, with a mountain of stacked layers including clays and sulfates; Holden, a crater containing alluvial fans, flood deposits, possible lake beds and clay-rich deposits; and Mawrth, which shows exposed layers containing at least two types of clay.

Mars investigators have underlined the importance of the Mars Science Laboratory mission, saying it will not only provide them with critical new data, but it will also help them in their next ambitious goal, that of sending a manned mission to Mars.