Rocket Lab has been selected to develop and implement an alternative Mars Sample Return programme. It aims to return to Earth samples of Martian soil collected by the Perseverance rover. However, its development has reached a dead end and for some time NASA has been looking for ways to remedy the situation.
Rocket Lab saves the Martian mission
On October 7, Rocket Lab officials announced that NASA had tasked them with developing an alternative plan for the Mars Sample Return mission. They should either review the technical component of the mission in its entirety or a key component of the mission.
Mars Sample Return is the most important of NASA’s projects to explore the planets of the Solar System. This mission should return to Earth the Martian soil samples that Perseverance is now collecting. However, it has been clear for a couple of years that the mission budget has long since been exceeded, and in fact, the vehicles haven’t even begun to be built yet.
Current expectations of sending Mars Sample Return to the Red Planet look like $11 billion and a timeframe of no earlier than 2040, which absolutely no one is satisfied with. Therefore, back in June, NASA selected 7 companies to provide suggestions on how to realize all of this faster and cheaper.
Curiously, Rocket Lab wasn’t among them. However, the contest was open and its engineers simply provided their proposals earlier. And as it happens, NASA chose them for implementation.
What Rocket Lab offers
Actually, the fact that NASA has chosen someone to improve the situation with Mars Sample Return became clear on September 27, when it became known that NASA signed a contract with someone at a cost of 625,000 dollars. And now we know it’s Rocket Lab. So what they offered.
Rocket Lab say they’re going to get it all done in the 2028 launch window. And it will all cost only $2 billion. If these plans can be realized, it means that the Martian samples will come to Earth as early as 2033, and this cannot but please, because experts don’t guarantee the preservation of operability about larger terms.
How all of this will be realized, we do not know definitively yet. However, from NASA releases, it is already clear that at the center of the plan will be the new Rocket Lab’s Neutron carrier, which is now just undergoing testing. It is expected to take a total of two of its launches. The first will deliver a vehicle to Mars, which will take the samples and put them into orbit of the red planet. The second will leave a module on it to transport them to Earth.
Developments of other companies
At the same time, it should be remembered that the seven companies that were initially selected for the competition also provided their plans. And some of them look quite interesting. Blue Origin, for example, has stated that it will use its “commercial capabilities” and NASA support for its Blue Moon manned lunar landing vehicle through the Human Landing System program.
Aerojet Rocketdyne and L3Harris said they were looking for ways to reduce the mass of both the MAV and its landing module. This could allow the landing module to use a landing technology called skycrane, demonstrated on the Curiosity and Perseverance rovers on Mars, which would reduce costs.
SpaceX is quite expectedly betting on Starship, but hasn’t provided many technical details yet. It seems that the final design can be expected only after consultation with NASA.
According to spacenews.com
