NASA’s Perseverance rover collected its first samples on Mars a year ago. These will probably arrive on Earth in 2033, but without the help of the European Mars rovers responsible for collecting samples.
Curiosity and perseverance
NASA launched Perseverance in 2020, nine years after the Curiosity rover, and landed it on the Red Planet on February 18, 2021 to explore and extract materials from Mars’ Jezero crater.
NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter took pictures of the landing.
Perseverance collected its first rock samples in September 2021. These are now in sealed sample tubes, but are stuck on the planet. It is not certain that they will manage to return to Earth and they will need the help of rovers from NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA).
Samples of Mars in 2033
NASA says it has finished revising the system requirements for its Mars sample return campaign, which now excludes ESA’s Airbus-built Sample Fetch Rover and its associated second lander. The decision came after a meeting between NASA and ESA officials about returning samples to Mars earlier this month.
The vehicle that will return the Martian samples to Earth is the Earth Return Orbiter, which NASA plans to launch in the fall of 2027, followed by its Sample Retrieval Lander in the summer of 2028. NASA released a sketch of the Sample Retrieval Lander in april. Mars samples are expected to arrive on Earth in 2033, NASA said in a press release.
Important changes
The rover roster change means that Perseverance will be the primary vehicle responsible for bringing the samples to the sample retrieval lander.
“The design phase is when all facets of a mission plan are scrutinized,” says Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for science at NASA. “The plan has undergone significant changes, which can be directly attributed to Perseverance’s recent successes at Jezero and the amazing performance of our Martian helicopter. »
The sample retrieval lander will have two helicopters that will collect samples. Their design is based on Ingenuity’s helicopter, which exceeded its originally planned life by a year. The new helicopters are a “secondary capability” for sample recovery.
The Earth Return Orbiter in development
Despite the withdrawal of ESA’s Sample Fetch Rover from the Mars sample return program, NASA says that ESA’s Earth Return Orbiter and its capture, containment and return system, provided by NASA, “remain essential elements of the program architecture”.
NASA plans to begin its year-long preliminary design phase in October, during which it will create engineering prototypes of major mission components.
For what it’s worth, ESA’s 22 participating states “will consider discontinuing development of the Sample Fetch Rover” at their next meeting in September, according to NASA.
ESA officials say they remain committed to the development of its Earth Return Orbiter. “ESA is moving full speed ahead with the development of the Earth Return Orbiter, which will make the historic round trip between Earth and Mars, and the Sample Transfer Arm, which will place the sample tubes on board the orbital container of samples before its launch from the surface of the red planet”, specifies David Parker, director of human and robotic exploration at ESA.
Source: ZDNet.com