First privately funded Robotic Mission to Mars by Mars One by 2018 - Lander and Orbiter

One non-profit foundation, The Mars One plans to establish a permanent human settlement on the Red Planet - Mars in the mid 2020's with people interested in one-way trip to Mars.  The foundation has taken a major step today when they announced their plans to launch the first privately funded space missions to Mars in 2018.

Mr. Mas Lansdorp, Mars One Co-Founder and CEO announced their plan to launch two missions to Mars in 2018 consisting of a robotic lander and an orbiting communication satellite which is essential for transmitting the data collected on the Red planet.  This is going to be the first private mission to Mars.

 Lansdorp stated that Mars One has signed contracts with Lockheed Martin and Surrey Satelite technology Ltd (SSTL) to develop mission concept studies - both the companies are leading aerospace companies with vast experience in building satellites.  The 2018 Mars lander would be a technology demonstrator with a scoop, cameras and a solar array for powering the satellite.   The structure of the spacecraft would be based on NASA's highly successful 2007 Phoenix Mars Lander built by Lockheed Martin.

 Lockheed Martin engineers will work for the next 3 to 4 months to study mission concepts as well as how to stack the orbiter and lander on the launcher.   The lander will provide proof of concept for some of the technologies that are important for a permanent human settlement on Mars,” said Lansdorp.

Two examples involve experiments to extract water into a usable form and construction of a thin film solar array to provide additional power to the spacecraft and eventual human colonists.
It would include a Phoenix like scoop to collect soils for the water extraction experiment and cameras for continuous video recording transmitted by the accompanying orbiter.

For the 2018 lander, Mars One also plans to include an experiment from a worldwide university challenge and items from several Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) challenge winners.

Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. (SSTL) was selected to studying orbiter concepts that will provide a high bandwidth communications system in a Mars synchronous orbit and will be used to relay data and a live video feed from the lander on the surface of Mars back to Earth, according to Sir Martin Sweeting, Executive Chairman of SSTL.

There are still many unknowns at this stage including the sources for all the significant funding required by Mars One to transform their concepts into actual flight hardware. 

“Crowdfunding and crowdsourcing activities are important means to do that,” said Lansdorp.
At the briefing, Lansdorp stated that Mars One has started an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign. The goal is to raise $400,000 by Jan. 25, 2014.

Mars One is looking for sponsors and partners. They also plan a TV show to help select the winners of the first human crew to Mars from over 200,000 applicants from countries spread all across Earth.
The preliminary 2018 mission study contracts with Lockheed and Surry are valued at $260,000 and $80,000 respectively.