Three University of Hawaii scientists are among a group selected by NASA to be part of a robotic science mission to Mars planned for 2020.

The rover mission, whose budget is contingent on future appropriations, would seek to answer key questions about the potential for life on the red planet and demonstrate technologies that address the challenges of future human expeditions there, the space agency said.

Among the UH scientists, Sarah Fagents will be a "team volcanologist" responsible for identifying volcanic rocks, interpreting how they formed, and understanding how volcanic eruptions have interacted with ice or water in the Martian subsurface.

"When you get volcanic heat and you get water or ice, then that has the potential to provide environments that are favorable for microbial development, for example," said Fagents, a researcher at the Hawaii Institute of Geophysics and Planetology.

Fagents, who said she was notified earlier this month of the upcoming involvement, said it’s exciting to be part of the NASA team. She was involved "somewhat peripherally" in the Galileo mission to the Jupiter system.

"But being involved in these rover missions (to Mars), that’s another step up, because we will be involved in the day-to-day sort of mission control," she said. "We’ll be making the decisions on where the rover goes and what rocks we’re going to look at and discovering brand new things about the surface of Mars."

Fagents will be part of a team of about 30 scientists, technical people and engineers assigned to the Mastcam-Z, one of seven instruments that will be aboard the Mars rover in 2020.

An advanced camera system with stereoscopic and panoramic and zoom imaging capability, the Mastcam-Z will determine mineralogy on the Martian surface.

UH researcher Shiv Sharma and associate researcher Anupam Misra, both experts in Raman spectroscopy and fluorescence at the Hawaii Institute of Geophysics and Planetology, will be part of a team using a SuperCam.

Raman spectroscopy uses a laser to analyze reflected light to identify minerals and organic substances, according to UH.

The SuperCam will be used to provide imaging, chemical composition analysis and mineralogy and can detect the presence of organic compounds in rocks from a distance.

NASA announced plans for the new rover mission in 2012, building on the successful landing that year of the Curiosity rover as part of the Mars Science Laboratory mission.

The 2020 mission would rely on innovations used for Curiosity, especially for entry, descent and landing, NASA said. That means the use of a parachute and descent vehicle, and during the final seconds, use of a rocket-fired "skycrane" to lower the rover to the Martian surface.

The new rover will carry more sophisticated, upgraded hardware and new instruments, NASA said.

"Today we take another important step on our journey to Mars," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said July 31 in announcing the rover’s payload of seven instruments. "While getting to and landing on Mars is hard, Curiosity was an iconic example of how our robotic scientific explorers are paving the way for humans to pioneer Mars and beyond."

Fagents said designers will be fabricating the new rover over the next several years. The scientific team will move to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., she said.

The scientists will even shift to Martian days, which are longer than Earth days, "so that we’re awake and operating when the rover is in daylight on the surface to Mars," Fagents said. "So it will be all-consuming at that point."

In 2016, a Mars lander mission called InSight will be launched to take the first look into the deep interior of Mars, NASA said. NASA also is participating in the European Space Agency’s 2016 and 2018 ExoMars missions.