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Canceled NASA Mars rover concept

The Astrobiology Field Laboratory (AFL) (also Mars Astrobiology Field Laboratory or MAFL) was a proposed NASA rover that would have conducted a search for life on Mars. This proposed mission, which was not funded, would have landed a rover on Mars in 2016 and explore a site for habitat. Examples of such sites are an active or extinct hydrothermal deposit, a dry lake or a specific polar site. Had it been funded, the rover was to be built by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, based upon the Mars Science Laboratory rover design, it would have carried astrobiology oriented instruments, and ideally, a core drill. The original plans called for a launch in 2016, however, budgetary constraints caused funding cuts.

The rover could have been the first mission since the Viking program landers of the 1970s to specifically look for the chemistry associated with life (biosignatures), such as carbon based compounds along with molecules involving both sulfur and nitrogen. The mission strategy was to search for habitable zones by "following the water" and "finding the carbon." However, the biosignatures themselves may become progressively destroyed by ongoing environmental processes. Sample acquisition will need to be executed in multiple locations and at depths below that point on the Martian surface where oxidation results in chemical alteration. The surface is oxidizing as a consequence of the absence of magnetic field or magnetosphere shielding from harmful space radiation and solar electromagnetic radiation —which may well render the surface sterile down to a depth greater than To get under that potential sterile layer, a core drill design is currently being studied. As with any trade, the inclusion of the drill would come at the mass expense available for other payload elements. Analytical laboratory biosignature measurements require the pre selection and identification of high priority samples, which could be subsequently subsampled to maximize detection probability and spatially resolve potential biosignatures for detailed analysis.

It was suggested that the Astrobiology Field Laboratory use radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs) as its power source, like the ones to be used on the Mars Science Laboratory. The radioactive RTG power source was to last for about one Martian year, or approximately two Earth years. RTGs can provide reliable, continuous power day and night, and waste heat can be used via pipes to warm systems, freeing electrical power for the operation of the vehicle and instruments.