NASA’s Mars Astrobiology Field Laboratory (AFL)
NASA’s Mars Astrobiology Field Laboratory (AFL)
Mission information gathered by the Mars Astrobiology Field Laboratory is a major advancement in Astrobiology, along with the search for habitation of life on Mars. Equipped to perform testing on collected samples from Mars, it will answer essential questions of previous theories regarding life in the Universe, such as “Are we alone in the Universe?” and answer basic questions about how life began.
There is not a doubt about the highly technological advances being made during these exciting days in space and science discoveries, which is bringing these answers closer and closer. NASA has a main priority on its table, and that is the search for evidence regarding how life started and who else is in the Universe with us—all-focusing on Mars and human exploration with the NASA’s Mars Program in the driver’s seat. With a systematic set of mission launchings at approximately every 26 months, with the Astrobiology Field Laboratory the next search platform.
The AFL will follow the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) which was launched in 2005, the Phoenix Scout-class mission which was launched in 2007, the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) to launch in 2009, and the Mars Science Orbiter to launch in 2013. Currently, an option has opened to send the AFL to Mars in 2016 opportunity for launching but that is still in draft formation. The goals for the AFL mission were based on the anticipation goals and payload of the MSL rover, with all the new information about Mars based on current missions and previous data. But regardless, the question still remains, “Could Mars have been habitable in the past, or is it habitable now?”
The Astrobiology Field Laboratory has several major goals: explore a site on Mars with the ability to have high potential for habitability with determined results from the MRO, Phoenix, or MSL missions; search for evidence of past or present life through the identification of potential bio-signatures or biomarkers; and to test for habitation through investigation. Personally, I feel we are beginning to look into our own future in the present state of Mars, and what will happen to Earth if things do not change. Everything that has happened in the past will happen again in the future, with specific points in time used as targets.
More than we could ever understand is going on in not only our own little world but also the Universe, as our scientists are slowly beginning to realize. Day by day with each new finding, we are realizing that everything we have been taught in the past regarding a physical universe is not only wrong, but also the governing laws are also. It is time to change before we ruin not only our own world, but those around us.
This entry was posted on Monday, August 20th, 2007 at 2:21 pm and is filed under Mission History, Mission Objectives, Space Agency News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
