NASA delays next Mars Scout mission to 2013

WASHINGTON, Dec. 21 (Xinhua) -- NASA announced on Friday that the next mission in the Mars Scout program, originally planned for launch in 2011, is now targeted for launch in 2013.

The schedule slip is because of an unspecified conflict of interest that was discovered in one of the mission proposal team's Phase A Concept Study, said the federal space agency. This was the shortest delay for the mission possible because opportunities to send spacecraft to Mars occur only once every 26 months.

In the first round of the Mars Scout 2006 competition, two missions for 2011 were originally selected from 26 proposals for further evaluation in a concept study phase.

In November, NASA postponed the Scout mission's evaluation, selection, and announcement so the agency could resolve an organizational conflict of interest, which was discovered shortly after the concept study reports were received.

The extent of the conflict was "severe" enough that NASA determined its only recourse was to stop the evaluation and reconstitute the entire review panel that provides the technical and cost analyses for mission selections.

NASA will fund current proposals to meet a new launch date in 2013. Revised proposals will be due in August 2008, and the evaluation and selection will take place in December 2008.

The Mars Scout Program is designed to send a series of small, low-cost missions to the Red Planet that are competitively selected. The first robotic spacecraft in this program is the Phoenix lander, which was launched Aug. 4, 2007, and is scheduled to land in the icy northern polar region of Mars on May 25, 2008.