The program Mars Sample Return (MSR) return of Mars samples is still in the mission design phase, ie phase A (this goes up to the implementation in phase E). It is on the occasion of the Space Science Week (space science week) at the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, that Thomas Zurbuchen (associate director of the Nasa for scientific missions) announced major changes for MSR.
In fact, the program is already underway! The American rover Perseverance, which landed in Jezero Crater in February 2021, is already collecting the rock samples. He stores them separately in cigar-shaped capsules. Perseverance keeps the samples in its cabin until it has enough to deposit them on the surface. The MSR program is responsible for bringing them back to Earth.
Duplication of the recovery mission
The MSR program has so far had two missions: one to recover the samples, and one to bring them back to Earth. The first had a rover to pick up the capsules, which would then transfer them to a small rocket. Later, the small rocket would take off from Mars but would not have enough power to reach Earth. It would then orbit around the red planet. It would then be the turn of the second mission, with a probe, to recover the samples in orbit and bring them back to Earth.
Today, NASA ruled that both the recovery rover (Mars Fetch Rover) with the Martian Rocket (Mars Ascent Vehicle) would be too complicated and too risky. Indeed, this is a lot of payload in a single flight, which leaves too little safety margin. We therefore decided to divide the mission into two flights: a first for the recovery rover and its landing platform, a second to land the Martian rocket on Mars, not far from the rover.
So there will be a lot of people in the jezero craterespecially since the MSR program is a cooperation between NASA (the American space agency) and theESA (European Space Agency). The latter provides the Mars Fetch Rover as well as the probe returning the samples to Earth (Earth Return Orbiter). Both will be manufactured by Airbus Defense & Space. On the American side, NASA is supplying the landers, the sample capture mechanism, the terrestrial atmospheric re-entry capsule, as well as the Mars Ascent Vehicle with the help of manufacturers Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman.
Two-year staggered program
The sample retrieval rover was originally scheduled to depart in 2026. Following an independent audit of the mission, NASA indicated that ultimately it will not be feasible and that it will instead have to wait for the next window launch, which takes place only every 24 months to reach Mars from Earth without costing too much time and fuel.
The rover will therefore leave in 2028, as well as the Mars Ascent Vehicle soon after in another flight. I’Earth Return Orbiter will leave in 2027 (unchanged). Like everything, the program – extremely complex, it should be specified – is postponed by two years, it will be the same for the date of return of the samples to Earth, now scheduled for 2033.
This new schedule does not detail the additional costs that are involved in this program, in particular those of a launcher and an additional lander. Phase A of the mission will end during a review scheduled for June. The mission can then move on.
The ambitious Mars Sample Return mission takes shape: first tests of its equipment
Started last February with the landing of the Perseverance rover, designed to collect Martian samples, the mission Mars Sample Return continues with the development and tests on a second rover intended to collect the samples and transport them to Earth.
Article of Gaspar Solomonpublished on December 15, 2021
The result of a collaboration between the American and European space agencies, NASA and ESA, the mission Mars Sample Return aims to return samples of Martian soil to Earth, which would mark a first in the field of space exploration. Started last February with the landing of the rover Perseverance (Mars 2020 mission) in the Jezero crater, the mission Mars Sample Return should see the arrival of Martian samples on Earth during 2031.
A space program in three stages
The first stage of the program Mars Sample Return, whose ultimate objective is to detect possible traces of past life on the Red Planet, was a great success. The Perseverance rover (also accompanied by the aerobot Ingenuity) touched down on Martian soil last February at the bottom of Jezero Crater; since then, it has enabled, among other things, the collection of several samples of Martian soil, mainly in rocks likely to have preserved biochemical traces of life for several billion years. Perseverance has already been able to collect four samples of Martian rocks, which should be sent to Earth to allow scientists, unlike the mission ExoMars who will analyze the samples on site, to analyze and study them with much more efficient laboratory equipment, and much too large to be sent to Mars.
Once the samples have been collected, the mission requires the use of a second lander, under the control of NASA and called SRL (Sample Retrieval Lander), comprising on the one hand a rover in charge of recovering the samples selected by Perseverance, as well as a small rocket (baptized Mars Ascent Vehicle) responsible for returning the samples to Mars orbit. The samples will be packed into the rocket using an arm roboticsbefore joining the European orbiter ERO (Earth Return Orbiter), where the samples will be sealed before their journey to Earth.
Many tests to be carried out before being able to move forward serenely
Marking a fundamental advance for the fields of planetary science and space exploration, the program Mars Sample Return also requires new technical prowess: the lander Sample Retrieval would be the biggest and heaviest (over two tons, almost twice as heavy as Perseverance) to ever go to Mars. Numerous tests are carried out with a prototype lander in order to study the slightest characteristic likely to jeopardize the landing of the module. Sample Retrieval. According to Pavlina Karafillis, engineer at Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) of NASA, ” the last leg of the journey is very important, because there are all kinds of landing conditions to take into account, such as rocks, or the sand very soft “.
But landing is only part of the challenge, because once the samples are loaded into the rocket, the latter will have to take off to reach the orbiter: it will be the first time in history that a spacecraft will take off from the surface of a planet other than Earth. Already a major challenge, the teams in charge of the mission will also have to take into account the low gravity Mars (one-third that of Earth) and the weight of the rocket which, combined with its exhaust, could tip it over. Although the tests are not yet strictly satisfactory, the engineers in charge of take-off are on the right track, and are confident that their tests will be successful in the near future.
The Mars Sample Return Mission Becomes Reality: Here’s How It’s Going To Happen
Article of Schaepmeester’s Dorianpublished on October 18, 2021
NASA is preparing the return of samples taken from Mars by Perseverance with a mission, named Mars Sample Returnenvisaged since the launch of the rover to the Red Planet in 2020. The Space Agency has announced that it is working in collaboration with ESA, for an estimated return to Earth by 2030.
The return of the Martian rocks is becoming clearer! NASA announced the progress of the project Mars Sample Return (MSR), which should make it possible to take off from the Red Planet the samples taken by Perseverance in order to send them to Earth. the Jet Propulsion Laboratorybranch of NASA overseeing the Mars 2020 mission, indicated that this project was being developed, in collaboration with the European Space Agency (ESA). Several parameters must be taken into account, such as the landing of a launcher, the recovery of rocks and their return, through the decontamination of samples.
The ambitious sample return project
The MSR mission was initiated by NASA in 2020, in parallel with the dispatch of the Mars 2020 mission in July of the same year. To achieve this extremely technical task, the budget allocated to NASA has increased by 7%, rising to 24.8 billion dollars annually; 9% of this increase will be earmarked for the Scientific Mission Department (science mission director), responsible for the design of Mars Sample Return.
3D conceptualization of the MSR mission. © NASA, JPL-Caltech
This will be divided into several parts: the Sample Retrieval Lander (SRL), device carrying a new rover and a launch vehicle is deposited on Mars during the coming decade. The rover would then be deployed not far from Perseverance in order to recover the tubes containing the rock samples in its wake. Once the samples have been stored using a robotic arm, the rover would return to its starting point in order to transfer the rocks to the launcher. The latter would then take off on an estimated date of 2028 to rendezvous with the orbiter created by ESA and Airbus Defense and Space, Earth Return Orbiter.
The return journey to Earth is estimated to take three years: the ERO would not release the samples until 2031. The researchers would be busy examining whether the rocks could represent a risk of contamination for terrestrial organisms before turning to the study of precious materials.
The scientific interest of “Mars Sample Return”
Mars Sample Return is not a scientific fad or the only demonstration of the technological mastery of space agencies. The return of rocks collected by Perseverance could allow researchers to learn more about the history of Mars and the possible traces of its habitabilitywhen the Red Planet had water on its surface, about 3 billion years ago.
If the plethora of instruments equipped on Perseverance already make it possible to study the geological components of Mars, the technological tools usable on Earth such as microscopes or even spectroscopes would allow scientists to go into the details of this research, in order to determine whether life could have been present on the surface of Mars one day. While waiting for the launch of the missions which will take place between now and 2030, the three rovers Curiosity, Perseverance and Zhurong continue to explore the Red Planet to learn more about its history.
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