NASA Considers Other Ways to Bring Its Mars Samples Home

In 2021, NASA Perseverance The rover landed in Jezero Crater on Mars. Over the next three years, this astrobiology mission collected soil and rock samples from the crater floor for possible return to Earth. Analyzing these samples should reveal a lot about Mars’ past and how it went from a warmer, wetter place to the frigid, parched place we know today. Unfortunately, budget cuts have placed the future of the NASA-ESA project Sample return to Mars (MSR) mission uncertain.

As a result, NASA recently announced that it was seeking proposals for more cost-effective and faster methods of bringing the samples home. These will be three studies carried out by NASA and the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (JHUAPL). Additionally, NASA has selected seven commercial partners for firm-fixed-price contracts of up to $1.5 million to conduct their own 90-day studies. Once completed, NASA will review proposals for integration into the MSR mission architecture.

As Administrator Bill Nelson stated in a NASA press release

“Mars Sample Return will be one of the most complex missions NASA has ever undertaken, and it is critical that we complete it faster, with less risk and at lower cost. I am excited to see the vision presented by these companies, centers and partners as we seek new, exciting and innovative ideas to unlock the great cosmic secrets of the Red Planet.

The MSR mission represents the culmination of decades of efforts to learn more about the early history of Mars. NASA had initially hoped that the first crewed mission (scheduled for 2033) would retrieve the samples and return them to Earth. However, delays and budget problems have led to growing fears that a crewed mission will not reach Mars before 2040 (at the earliest). As a result, NASA and the European Space Agency adopted a joint mission architecture consisting of several robotic elements that would return the samples by 2031.

This included the Sample Retrieval Lander (SRL), two Sample Retrieval Helicopters (SRH), the Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV), the Earth Return Orbiter (ERO) and the Earth Entry System (EES). However, the current budget environment forced NASA to announce that the 15-year MSR mission architecture (which would cost $11 billion) was too expensive and that waiting until 2040 was impractical. As a result, NASA adopted a revised plan that leverages current technology and will return Mars samples by the 2030s. As NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said at the time:

“Mars Sample Return will be one of the most complex missions ever undertaken by NASA. Ultimately, an $11 billion budget is too expensive and a 2040 return date is too far away. Land and collect the samples safely, launch a rocket with the samples from another planet – something that has never been done before – and transport the samples safely more than 33 million kilometers to Earth n It’s not an easy task. We need to think outside the box to find a solution that is both affordable and allows samples to be retrieved in a reasonable time frame.

In addition to studies conducted by NASA, seven aerospace companies were selected to develop sample return concepts. They include NASA’s regular commercial partners, such as Lockheed Martin, SpaceX, Aerojet Rocketdyne, Blue Origin and Northrop Grumman, as well as newcomers Quantum Space and Whittinghill Aerospace. In total, $10 million was granted to these companies to develop their concepts, the full list of which is available here.

Once again, NASA is facing a budget crisis and has reached out to its commercial partners to develop cost-effective alternatives. This continues NASA’s long history of working with the commercial sector to develop key mission concepts. However, the need to outsource major elements of its Moon to Mars program highlights the agency’s ongoing budget problems. As independent experts have concluded, a budget increase is necessary if NASA is to achieve its ambitious goals for the future.

Further reading: NASA