NASA (United States space agency) is seeking innovative methods that can help recover samples collected by the Perseverance rover on Mars in the future.
The rover, which landed on Mars in February 2021, has been collecting samples from Jezero Crater , where an ancient lake and river delta once existed on the Red Planet. Scientists believe the samples could help them better understand whether life once existed on Mars.
The original design for the Mars Sample Return program, a partnership between NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA), was complex. The architecture involved multiple missions launched from Earth to Mars to collect the samples and then conducting the first rocket launch from the surface of another planet to return the samples to Earth.
But there have been concerns about the program being too complicated due to complexity, expense and a delayed return date, which was originally supposed to be in 2031 but was postponed following assessments by an independent review board. Budget cuts that impacted NASA also put the program at risk.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson and Nicky Fox, associate administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate, shared the federal agency's response to the independent review board on Monday.
Program reviews recommended that returning the sample from Mars should cost no more than US$5 billion to US$7 billion (between R$26 billion and R$36 billion), Nelson said. But NASA is being forced to deal with reduced spending constraints due to budget cuts for fiscal years 2024 and 2025, causing a $2.5 billion hit to the agency, he said. he.
“Mars Sample Return will be one of the most complex missions ever undertaken by NASA. The end result is that a budget of US$11 billion (approximately R$57.5 billion) is too expensive and a return date in 2040 is too far away,” said Nelson. “Safely landing and collecting samples, launching a rocket with the samples off another planet — which has never been done before — and safely transporting the samples more than 53 million kilometers back to Earth is no easy task. We need to think outside the box to find a way forward that is affordable and returns samples in a reasonable time frame.”
Nelson said it is unacceptable to wait until 2040 to return samples to Earth because the 2040s is “the decade in which we are going to land astronauts on Mars,” he reiterated during a press conference on Monday.
Less budget and rising costs
An $11 billion price tag for the program would cause NASA to cannibalize other science programs and missions, Nelson said.
These missions include the NEO, or Near-Earth Object, Surveyor to discover asteroids that could pose a risk to Earth; Dragonfly, which will investigate the potential habitability of Saturn's moon Titan; and missions like DAVINCI and VERITAS to discover the secrets of Venus. (The names of the Venus missions are abbreviations for Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble Gases, Chemistry and Imaging Plus and Venus Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR, Topography, and Spectroscopy.)
While Nelson is hopeful that the budget for fiscal year 2026 won't be so tight, opening up more science funding for NASA, that doesn't solve the immediate problem of how to move forward with the Mars Sample Return.
So the space agency is opening a request for help.
Innovation and reliable technology
Agency officials will soon announce requests to NASA centers and industry to develop a new plan that combines innovation with lessons learned from proven technology, according to Fox. NASA is targeting the 2030s for a return mission of samples with less complexity, cost and risk, he said.
It's a quick turnaround for the proposals, and the agency hopes to have answers about how best to return samples from Mars by the fall, Nelson said.
O The basic requirement of the proposals is to return the 30 samples collected by Perseverance from a diverse set of locations, Fox said.
“Mars is extremely important to us,” said Fox. “It's one of the few places that could have supported life. That said, we understand that to do things faster, we may have to reduce the scope of the number of samples.”
The request for a new architecture for Mars Sample Return will include a variety of specimens desired for return to Earth, Fox said.
“We are starting from the premise that this is an important national objective, the return of samples,” Nelson said.
He reinforced the idea that NASA did not want to end the program as it considered it too critical, especially as the agency intends to land astronauts on the red planet in the future.
In the meantime, current decisions will not affect the science plan for Perseverance's Mars journey, and the rover will continue collecting samples as it explores the crater rim, Fox said.
Looking to the future Jet Propulsion Laboratory (or JPL) of NASA in Pasadena, California, manages the Perseverance rover mission and other exploration ventures on Mars.
Current return program efforts were underway at JPL when layoffs hit the site in February to meet the requirements of budget cuts. The new architecture that is ultimately developed for the sample return mission will determine the scope of JPL's management oversight, Nelson said.
The European Space Agency also played an important role in the program's development, and Fox confirmed that the agency is still involved in discussions about the program's future.
For fiscal year 2025, Fox said he is recommending a $200 million budget request while NASA evaluates alternative architectures, which will also allow other planetary science to continue at JPL and other NASA centers.
“To organize a mission we employ decades of lessons on how to execute a major mission, including incorporating information gained through conducting independent reviews,” said Fox. “Our next steps will position us to advance this transformative mission and deliver breakthrough science. Mars – providing critical new insights into the origins and evolution of Mars, our solar system, and life on Earth.”
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Source: CNN Brasil
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