Gravity mapping has delineated seven new gravity anomalies

Background Information

Mars Instrument Development Program - NASA has accepted the considerable challenge of returning samples from the surface of Mars on a mission launched in 2005 (referred to here as the Mars '05 mission). Prior to this, there were be two other opportunities to land on Mars and carry out preliminary site traverses, rock compositional/mineralogical characterization, and sample caching. These were Mars '01 and Mars '03 missions that deployed long-duration rovers with instrument suites capable of determining the bulk composition, and potentially the mineralogy, of rocks and soil. These rovers will break off or core out portions of candidate sample return specimens, store them, and deliver them to a caching site for retrieval by the Mars '05 mission. The overall goals of this Mars program must be achieved with relatively low mission risk and tightly constrained costs.