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. Mission 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." In particular, it was to conduct detailed analysis of geologic environments identified by the 2012 Mars Science Laboratory as being conducive to life on Mars and biosignatures, past and present. Such environments might include fine-grained sedimentary layers, hot spring mineral deposits, icy layers near the poles, or sites such as gullies where liquid water once flowed or may continue to seep into soils from melting ice packs. Planning The Astrobiology Field Laboratory (AFL) would have followed the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (launched in 2005), Phoenix lander (launched in 2007), and Mars Science Laboratory (launched in 2011). The AFL 'Science Steering Group' developed the following set of search strategies and assumptions for increasing the likelihood of detecting biosignatures: Life processes may produce a range of biosignatures such as lipids, proteins, amino acids, kerogen-like material or characteristic micropores in rock. 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