For the past two months I have been scheming up an idea to explore the subsurface of Mars. I thought I was being clever, I thought "Haha! No one has done this yet"! But low and behold, I found a project called "Exomars". Exomars is a Mars mission set to launch in two parts. One in 2016 and the other in 2018. The 2016 launch will include a land rover and an orbiter. The orbiter is designed to search for gases that appear in small concentrations in the Mars atmosphere (less than 1%). The rover is designed to test entry methods to Mars and deliver a scientific package that will gather information for around 9 days.
You may be wondering "hey MrAstrowhat, what does this have to do with your revolutionary drill idea"? Well I'm so glad you asked!! The second launch in 2018 consists of a rover equipped with a drill module. The drill is built to drill two meters below the surface of Mars (which is much better than the half-meter depth of the Phoenix Lander) and bring up core samples to the surface so that they can be analyzed by the rover.
Now, I will say this is slightly different than my idea in which I had a drill that would dig down with heated drillheads and moisture sensors to detect liquid water. With this, no solid samples would be aquired, however, the vapours that developed would be analyzed by modules on the drill and, using an X-ray spectrometer, (which was an idea recommended to me) the drill would look for water (as opposed to other vapours that could arise, although we'd probably study those too).
I think this is a fantastic step in the search for life because it is the first time they will have explored the subsurface at a relatively deep level and if we actually found liquid water we might just find some extra terrestrial life! (it'd be about time....)
-MrAstrowhat
