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NASA also released the report of a Mars Sample Return Independent Review Board, which was established to assess the status of the multi-year international partnership with ESA.
The European Space Agency (ESA) has welcomed the Mars Sample Return campaign launched with NASA which involves both space agencies launching multiple missions to the Red Planet to collect samples, launch them into space and return them safely to earth.
NASA released the report by a Mars Sample Return Independent Review Board, which was established to assess the status of the multi-year international partnership, along with NASA’s response to its report recommendations.
The Council, after reviewing plans for one of the most ambitious endeavors humanity has ever attempted, concluded that space agencies are up for the challenge after several decades of scientific advancement and technical advancement in the exploration of Mars.
The Council recognized the longstanding cooperation between NASA and ESA in human and robotic space exploration as an asset to the robust campaign and praised the work done by the agencies so far.
NASA has initiated this independent review committee to ensure that the long-awaited mission is positioned for success. It is the first independent review of any NASA science mission. The board was made up of 10 leaders and experts with experience in science and engineering and included interviews with experts from NASA and ESA, as well as industry and academia. The board made 44 recommendations concerning the scope and management of the program, the technical approach, the timetable and the funding profile.
The campaign will require more advanced spacecraft, the first being NASA’s Perseverance rover, which is already halfway to Mars. Perseverance is a sophisticated sampling system, with a core drill and sampling tubes that are among the cleanest hardware ever sent into space.
Once on Mars, Perseverance will store rock and soil samples in its collection tubes. It will then leave some of them on the Martian surface for ESA’s Sample Fetch Rover to pick them up and deliver them, using ESA’s robotic arms, to a NASA Mars Ascent Vehicle, which will launch them into orbit around Mars.
Once in orbit around Mars, ESA’s Earth Return Orbiter will meet with samples more than 70 meters from Earth orbiting Mars and take them in a highly secure containment capsule, supplied by NASA, for the landing on Earth in the 1930s.
Commenting on the campaign, ESA Director of Human and Robotic Exploration David Parker said, The independent review has provided strong support for Mars Sample Return, which is great news for the campaign. It strengthens our shared vision to provide world scientists with pristine pieces of the Red Planet to study using laboratory tools and techniques that we could never bring to Mars.
“By following the International Space Station, Orion and the future Gateway around the Moon, we will strengthen the partnership of our agencies at the frontier of science and technology. ESA will carefully study the report’s recommendations and agree with NASA how to reflect them in our work together. “
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