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This illustration shows a concept of how NASA’s Mars Ascent Vehicle, which carries pipes containing rock and soil samples, could be launched from the surface of Mars in one phase of the Mars sample return mission. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech
NASA released an independent audit report on Tuesday indicating the agency is now ready to embark on its own Mars Sample Return (MSR) campaign to bring pristine samples from Mars to Earth for scientific studies. The agency established the MSR Independent Review Board (IRB) to evaluate its first concepts for a groundbreaking international partnership with ESA (European Space Agency) to return the first samples from another planet.
After a review of the Mars Sample Return agency’s ambitious plan, the board’s report concludes that NASA is ready for the campaign, building on decades of scientific advancements and technical advances in Mars exploration.
The MSR campaign will require three advanced spacecraft. The first, NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover, is more than halfway to Mars after launch in July. Aboard Perseverance is a sophisticated sampling system with a core drill and sampling tubes that are the cleanest hardware ever sent into space. Once on Mars, Perseverance aims to store rock and regolith samples in its collection tubes. It would then leave some on the Martian surface for an ESA-supplied “fetch” rover to be collected and delivered to a NASA-supplied Mars Ascent Vehicle, which would then launch the samples into orbit around Mars. An ESA-supplied Earth Return Orbiter will then meet with the samples in orbit around Mars and take them to a highly safe containment capsule for return to Earth in the 1930s.
“Mars Sample Return is something NASA must do as a leading member of the global community,” said Jim Bridenstine, NASA administrator. “We know there are challenges to be faced, but that’s why we take a close look at these architectures. And that’s why we get the great results in the end. “
Sample return is a top priority of the National Academies’ Decennial Planetary Science Survey for 2013-2022, and NASA has been working to mature the critical skills and overall concept of MSR over the past three years. The board recognized the long-standing cooperation between NASA and ESA in human and robotic space exploration as an asset to the robust campaign and praised both agencies’ early and in-depth analysis of the MSR’s implementation approaches to inform future planning and development.
“NASA is committed to mission success and to addressing great challenges for the benefit of humanity, and one way to do this is to make sure we are ready to succeed as soon as possible,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA’s associate administrator science at the agency’s headquarters in Washington. “I thank the members of this council for the many hours of work that led to a very thorough review. We look forward to continuing mission planning and formulation in close cooperation with ESA. Ultimately, I believe this return example will be worth it and will help us answer the key questions of astrobiology on the Red Planet, taking us one step closer to our ultimate goal of sending humans to Mars. “
NASA launched the IRB in mid-August to ensure the long-awaited mission is positioned for success. It is the first independent review of any major strategic mission from the NASA Science Mission Directorate. Historically, such revisions did not occur until much later in the development of the program.
David Thompson, retired president and CEO of Orbital ATK, chaired the IRB, which included 10 experienced leaders from the science and engineering sectors. The board, which met for 25 sessions from August to October this year, interviewed experts from NASA and ESA as well as from industry and academia, and made 44 recommendations to address potential areas of concern regarding the scope and management of the program, the technical approach, program and funding profile.
“The MSR campaign is a highly ambitious, technically challenging and multifaceted planetary exploration program with extraordinary scientific potential for world-changing discoveries,” said Thompson. “After a careful review of the agency’s planning in recent years, the IRB unanimously believes that NASA is now ready to move forward with the MSR program, the next step in robotic exploration of Mars.”
The IRB found that NASA has developed a feasible concept and a broad set of architectural options to inform MSR campaign planning in the coming years and recommends proceeding with the MSR program. It also highlighted the excellent progress the agency has made in recent years and further underlined the potential of this program to enable civilization-scale scientific breakthroughs, noting that the technology is now available.
“The independent review has provided strong support for MSR, which is great news for the campaign,” says David Parker, ESA’s Director of Human and Robotics Exploration. “It strengthens our shared vision to provide scientists around the world with pristine pieces of the Red Planet to study using laboratory tools and techniques that we could never bring to Mars.”
The IRB provided its findings and recommendations to NASA for consideration to better position the program for success. NASA has agreed to address and study all of the council’s recommendations over the next year as it proceeds through the first formulation efforts, well before the agency’s confirmation decision.
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