ESA and NASA have the ability to send a sample from Mars to Earth

Madrid, Nov 10 (EFE) .- According to the conclusions of a report by independent experts, the European Space Agency (ESA) and the US NASA intend to bring samples of Martian soil, a company for which they are trained, to Earth.
NASA released the so-called Mars Sample Return Independent Review Board’s report on Tuesday, which concludes that both agencies are prepared for this challenge “after several decades of scientific and technical advances in Mars exploration.”
Additionally, he noted that the long-standing cooperation between NASA and ESA in human and robotic space exploration is “an asset” to the mission and praised the work of both agencies to date.
“The independent review has provided strong support for the return of the Mars samples, which is excellent news for the campaign,” ESA director of human and robotic exploration David Parker said in a statement.
This view “reinforces our shared vision of providing world scientists with pristine pieces of the Red Planet to study with laboratory tools and techniques that we could never bring to Mars,” Parker added.
For NASA Administrator Jim Brindenstine, returning samples is something the US space agency “must do as a leading member of the global community”, even though it knows “there are challenges ahead.”
The campaign will require more advanced spacecraft, the first of which is NASA’s Perseverance rover, which is already traveling to Mars and is equipped with a sophisticated sampling system, a core drill and sampling tubes.
Perseverance will store rock and soil samples in pipes and leave them on the Martian surface for an ESA rover to pick them up and drop them on a NASA vehicle, which will put them into orbit around Mars.
Next, an ESA return ship will collect samples awaiting him in orbit and transport them in a high-security containment capsule, supplied by NASA, to land on Earth in the 1930s.
The assessment was carried out by ten experts in the fields of science and engineering and included interviews with experts from both space agencies as well as from industry and academia.
In addition, it made 44 recommendations concerning the scope and management of the program, the technical approach, the timing and the funding profile.