After an audit last fall, NASA is handing over its sample return project Martians flat. Because if the American agency continued, it would cost it at least $11 billion for a landing on Earth by 2040: this is no longer realistic. However, there needs to be a solution… It’s up to manufacturers to be creative!
On Mars for more than three years, the Perseverance rover has roamed the landscape on the edge of Jezero crater. It is currently on the edge of the Neretva Valley and periodically, when the scientific team managing the mission considers that it is on a compatible soil surface of great scientific interest, it takes a sample. It is a delicate process, which consists of storing precious grams of material in tubes which are then sealed and stored in a large central compartment… So that they can one day be brought back to Earth. NASA has been working for a long time on a (and in reality several) mission which will seek out these samples, collect them, send them into orbit, then bring them back to Earth so that they can be studied in terrestrial laboratories, with unparalleled capabilities. with the instruments of Mars rovers. The Mars Sample Return mission, in which the ESA is also participating, brings together all the components to bring back the precious harvest. Problem, for two years, the bill has continued to increase and the timetable is stretching… far, too far.
The bamboche is over
The American agency no longer had a choice. Scrutinized in an independent report from its audit office last fall, it admitted this Monday, April 15 that with the current architecture and budgets, it would take until 2040 to bring back the samples, with a global bill of 11 billion dollars. This is untenable, and even if NASA validated this solution, it would be forced to cut large budgets from other highly anticipated missions to Titan, Venus or to study asteroids. Especially since for the second consecutive year, the American agency saw its budget stagnate, making it difficult to balance the budget due to inflation. So, bring back samples from Mars or nothing? No way.
But there is no longer any question of sending a platform, two autonomous helicopters to bring back the sealed tubes, a return rocket and an orbital capsule. We will have to do it cheaper and faster. A very fine and complex line, because in any case, no nation has ever managed to land twice in the same place on Mars, nor recovered samples, nor launched a capsule from another planet (the Moon, yes , On the other hand). So the agency is asking for solutions that are both bold and secure. Good luck…
Innovate! But not expensive
The immediate result is the pausing of work on the project, which will therefore stagnate until at least 2025, by which time NASA hopes to have selected the solution which will allow it, in less than a decade, to bring back the precious tubes collected by Perseverance. The latter should continue its collection and drive at least until 2028, when the American agency should return it close to its starting point, while waiting for future return vehicles…
There is one on the other hand who did not take the opportunity to remind us that he is counting on his solution to land and take off from Mars. In a tweet in response to NASA, immediately criticized, Elon Musk explains that for him the Starship should within 5 years have the capacity to bring back quite a few things from the red planet…
Source : CNN
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