Mars 2020 Site-Specific Mission Performance Analysis: Part 2. Surface Traversability

The Mars 2020 Rover Mission (M2020) is characterized by demanding requirement on the distance and time for traveling between scientific Regions Of Interest (ROIs). As a result, surface traversability is one of the major driving factors for the landing site selection of M2020. With the newly developed Mars Terrain Traversability analysis Tools (MTTT), we performed traversability analysis of the eight candidate landing sites with an unprecedented granularity. This paper describes the MTTT analysis capabilityies, as well as how the MTTT capabilities were used to downselect from eight to three candidate landing sites for further evaluation.