Rovers for scientific exploration of the solar system

Planetary rovers are mobile platforms that allow measurements and samples to be taken in key places that are not accessible from landers alone. They are the logical next step in exploration and discovery of planetary surfaces. Upcoming missions include the 2001 Mars Surveyor Program lander with Marie Curie, a Pathfinder-class rover, and the 2003/2005 Mars Sample Return missions. The rovers on the 2003/2005 missions will be capable of operating with and without a lander and will be equipped with the Athena Science Payload. The Payload includes imaging systems, an emission spectrometer, an aim with analytical instrumentation, and a rock coring and caching system. The 2003/2005 rovers are being prototyped through the Field Integrated Design and Operations (FIDO) rover. The purpose of FIDO is to simulate, using Mars analog settings, the complex surface operations that will need to be accomplished in order to find, characterize, obtain, cache, and return samples to the lander. The samples will then be retrieved from orbit and sent back to Earth in 2008.