NASA's Draft Strategy for Long-Term Robotic Mars Exploration

NASA has released a draft strategy for long-term robotic exploration of Mars, emphasizing low-cost missions and potential commercial partnerships. The plan, called "Exploring Mars Together," proposes a steady cadence of missions after Mars Sample Return that would advance science and refresh the infrastructure needed to support other missions. The strategy aims to create a "sustainable" series of missions to Mars, launching relatively low-cost missions during every opportunity, which opens about once every two years. The regular series of smaller missions would be supplemented by medium-class missions similar in size to the New Frontiers line of planetary science missions.