Can a decision-support system assist the process of selecting landing sites on Mars and other destinations?
Selecting an extraterrestrial landing site is an extremely complex process that balances how scientifically interesting a location is with how conducive it is to safe landing and surface operation. The science value of candidate sites is assessed by scientists from a wide spectrum of disciplines, including geologists, climatologists, exobiologists, chemists, and physicists. Their recommendations must be integrated and evaluated against the mission’s engineering constraints. The places most appealing to scientists (the side of a cliff, for example, on which the planet’s history is recorded in layers of sedimentary rock) are often the most frightening to engineers charged with the robot’s safety. And conversely, the benign areas that delight engineers (such as a large, flat plain devoid of large, pointy rocks and chasms) tend to trigger yawns in their scientist colleagues. The best overall choices reflect compromise between the two competing interests. In the case of the Mars Exploration
