To be able to bring back samples collected by the rover Perseverance on Earth within a decade, NASA will ultimately only send a mission to look for them on the ground of March. And the latter will not carry a terrestrial robot, but two helicopters similar to Ingenuity. Ambitious !
There is also a slightly more complex political aspect…
Analyze Mars, with us
The detailed concept of the MSR mission (Mars Sample Return) changes, for a simplification of the architecture, to save money and to take into account the very good health of the Perseverance rover.
The latter has been rolling in the Jezero crater for almost 18 months and his mission is going as well as expected, if not better! He collected samples from the “bottom” of this ancient crater whose delta probably offered some of the most favorable conditions for life 3.5 billion years ago. He also explored the higher banks, at the beginning of this month of July.
The journey will continue for several more years, until it has drilled and embarked, in its bowels, nearly forty sealed tubes containing well-documented and very varied samples of the soil of Mars. The hope of NASA and the European Space Agency (which is a partner for the return of samples) is to one day be able to analyze them on Earth, in the best laboratories in the world.
Make it simpler with the existing
For this, it was planned to send two missions to the Jezero crater in turn: a rover capable of rolling quickly and recovering the samples left by Perseverance, then a platform equipped with a mini orbital launcher. Once the samples are installed in the warhead of the rocket, the latter takes off for the orbit of Mars, and a specialized satellite (the ERO, for Earth Return Orbiter) brings them back to our planet in 2033.
But all that will change: Perseverance’s performance is very good, the large rover will therefore be able to bring its samples back to the platform equipped with the rocket on its own to take off into orbit. NASA and ESA have therefore simplified all that: a single mission with a platform to land on Mars, equipped with a robotic arm capable of transferring the sealed tubes from the ground to the rocket. And another to capture the samples in orbit and bring them back.
Think of everything… Even politics
What if Perseverance ever fails? NASA will carry two helicopters barely bigger than the Ingenuity prototype, which has already made 29 flights in just one year on the surface of Mars. These will serve as a “backup solution” for transporting the tubes. The robotic arm that will load them into the rocket will be European.
If this solution is at the same time simpler, cheaper and more daring (in particular with the two helicopters), the changes concern more the Europeans, who until now were responsible for providing the “fetch rover” to recover the samples. The Airbus DS subsidiary in the United Kingdom was responsible for the design study, and hoped to move on to production… Instead, it is the Italians of Leonardo, OHB Italia and SAB Aerospace who will provide the robotic arm.
Airbus DS is still in charge of the return orbital mission, but not the English part… So there will be political negotiations behind the scenes in the months to come. Some whispers nevertheless suggest that this lesser involvement of the ESA will be a counterpart to a possible transport of the ExoMars rover to the red planet with the help of NASA. Mars is about strategy.
Source : NASA
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