2024-04-21 17:00:07
This illustration shows a concept of multiple robots that would team up to transport rock and soil samples collected from the surface of Mars by NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover to Earth. NASA/ESA/JPL-CALTECH
Lab life. Too expensive, too late. This is the diagnosis made by NASA on the Mars Sample Return mission, of which it is the instigator. On April 15, Bill Nelson, the administrator of the American space agency, indicated that a new internal evaluation confirmed an independent analysis from September 2023 which already highlighted a shift in costs – now estimated at $11 billion – and deadlines – an arrival on Earth of the samples around 2040 rather than at the beginning of the 2030 decade. A situation deemed unacceptable by the head of NASA.
This has therefore launched a call for proposals to the space industry to consider a new architecture for the mission, which could lower the ambition to bring back to Earth thirty samples patiently assembled by the Mars rover Perseverance. These proposals should be finalized in October.
If space cooperation is accustomed to budgetary and technical hazards, for NASA’s partners, the situation is no less uncomfortable. This is the case for the European Space Agency (ESA), which must provide the Earth Return Orbiter (ERO), the vehicle responsible for recovering samples in Martian orbit to bring them back to Earth.
Read the story: Article reserved for our subscribers The Perseverance rover explores the past of the planet Mars
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Europeans are not completely taken by surprise. In June 2023, American President Joe Biden was forced by the Republican opposition to sign a law which would limit NASA’s annual budget. “The main impact will be the postponement of the launch of ERO to 2030 instead of 2028”, says Orson Sutherland, head of Mars exploration at ESA. If he believes that the European machine will be ready, the date of its launch remains linked to the availability of its payload provided by NASA. Called “Capture, Containment, and Release System”, it will be responsible for capturing samples in orbit around the Red Planet.
“Coordinate three independent missions”
“Bringing back thirty or ten samples, for ERO, it technically makes no difference”, says Orson Sutherland. On the other hand, the sizing, design and cost of upstream systems will be affected by the final choice. The European official recalls that, “on the scientists’ side, we don’t want less than thirty samples.” The dozen that Perseverance has already deposited at a recovery point called “Three Forks” and those that the rover carries with it were not taken from the same terrain, and their comparison would be crucial to better understand Martian geology, and the possibility that our neighbor could have harbored life.
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