It could cost the American and European space agencies up to 11 billion dollars to deliver a handful of Martian rock samples to Earth, according to a NASA-invited independent investigation committee in September reported meaningwhich criticized the plans of the US space agency on several points, but considered the return of Martian samples scientifically sound and crucial from the point of view of the United States.
The expert group (Independent Review Board) led by Orlando Figueroa, the engineer responsible for NASA’s Mars exploration program in the 2000s, was formed in May 2023, and for its investigation, it consulted with a number of NASA and independent experts. The space agency will respond to the results of the investigation in the coming months and decide on the future of the project in mid-2024.
Mars sample returns began in 2021, after the space agency’s most advanced rover to date, Perseverance, landed on the planet. Since then, the spacecraft has collected dozens of rock samples in the Jezero crater, which would be brought back to Earth with the help of two additional probes in the early 2030s. The first is an American Sample Retrieval Lander (SRL) and the Mars launch vehicle (Mars Ascent Vehicle, MAV) mounted on it, and the second is the European Earth Return Orbiter (ERO), which receives samples from orbit around Mars. would bring it to Earth. This process, which we wrote about in detail earlier, is perfectly demonstrated in the video released by NASA last year:
Brutal costs and technical problems
The investigation committee says the Mars sample return has been working with an unrealistic budget and schedule from the start. This is illustrated by how far apart NASA’s current cost estimate of $5.6 billion (previously it was $3.3 billion) and its 2028 launch plan for the two new probes are from the numbers considered realistic by independent experts. According to Figueroa and his colleagues, the entire program will actually cost $8 billion to $9.6 billion, provided that plans remain unchanged and both the lander and the orbiter that bring home the samples can launch in 2030.
The cost of alternative scenarios, which include further slippage or modifications, could be as high as $10.9 billion. With this amount of money, one more James Webb space telescope could be launched, one more Large Hadron Collider (LHC) particle accelerator could be built, or the US Navy could order one more Gerald Ford-class nuclear-powered aircraft carrier.
The entire project is already a huge technological challenge, since humanity has never before launched a rocket from another planet, let alone caught its cargo with another probe and brought it back to Earth. If this were not enough, it must also be ensured that Martian materials cannot enter the Earth’s environment under any circumstances.
photo_camera The key elements of the sample return (from left to right): the Mars rover Perseverance, the Sample Return Lander (SRL), the Mars Launch Vehicle (MAV), the Earth Orbiter (ERO) and the Mars helicopter prepared in case Perseverance breaks down Photo: NASA/ JPL-Caltech
According to the investigation, the concept of the orbiting sample container is not yet mature enough, while many other components of the project depend on it, and it is not clear how the orbiter will receive it in orbit around Mars. In addition, it must also be proven that the external sterilization of the container with ultraviolet (UV) radiation as currently considered is indeed capable of destroying any potential Martian microorganisms or other biological agents, even if there is a minimal chance that they currently exist near the surface.
They also don’t think it’s right that NASA doesn’t adequately communicate to the scientific community, Congress, and American taxpayers in general how important the project is from a scientific and strategic point of view. The space agency also has the planetary research community and former senior experts legitimate concerns should also react – they fear the other missions from the resources siphoned off by the project.
Another point of concern may be the overload of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), which is responsible for Perseverance and most of the sample return, which we wrote about last year. So far, two probes have suffered from this: Psyche, which will visit a metal-rich asteroid, and its launch was postponed to October this year, as well as the VERITAS Venus probe, which may be delayed by three years because of this. In addition, JPL must also carry out another priority mission, the Europa Clipper, which will launch to Jupiter’s moon Europa in 2024.
At least Perseverance works well
The investigation committee also sees positive signs, since the start of thorough planning in 2020, significant progress has been made despite the covid epidemic and the international environment, and the development of the concept plans testifies to the persuasive commitment of a “world-class team.” They also found that the research team leading the Perseverance work had done a fantastic job and had successfully collected samples of great scientific value.
After the landing of Perseverance in February 2021, we wrote that researchers consider two sites particularly promising for the search for traces of ancient life in the Jezero crater: the sedimentary layers of the delta mouth once left by the water flowing in the Neretva Vallis, where clay minerals in rocks can hide organic molecules concentrated in the area, and the carbonate rocks on the edge of the crater, which may have been deposited on the shore of the ancient lake that once filled it. These could have been able to preserve microbial fossils if life existed on the planet billions of years ago.
photo_camera Perseverance taking a selfie with the sample depot at the bottom of the delta Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech
After months of exploring the crater floor, where it found evidence of a once-habitable environment, the probe arrived at the delta in April 2022. Here, in the following months, he took rock samples from its lower layers. In February of this year, it placed 10 sample containers on the surface in an area called “Three Forks”. The rover placed 8 rock samples in the reserve sample depot, of which “copies” taken from the same rocks are still traveling on it. Perseverance spent most of 2023 atop the delta, reconstructing how water once flowed in the area and studying stones and rocks carried from outside the crater by the ancient river. Perseverance, which has collected a total of 21 samples so far, arrived at the carbonate layer two weeks ago and has already started examining it.
photo_camera The Neretva Vallis in the July panoramic image of the Mars rover Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech
The investigation committee found the creation of the sample depot useful. At the same time, they believe that the samples that are currently traveling on the Mars rover and will be collected in the future in the carbonate layer and on the edge of the crater will be much more valuable from a scientific point of view, especially when it comes to identifying traces of ancient extraterrestrial life.
This, in turn, creates another problem: a landing site must be identified, possibly outside of Jezero Crater, where the sample return lander can land and Perseverance can deliver its samples to. The current plans are for sending 32 sample containers, each containing 15-16 grams of material, to Earth. The roughly 500 grams of material would be twice as much as NASA’s OSIRIS-REx researchers expect from samples brought back from Bennu on Sunday.
Why is it still worth nearly $10 billion?
The experts have listed seven main arguments in favor of the return of samples from Mars, some of which are aimed at preserving scientific and technological and the leading role of the United States in space exploration. The project was designated as a top priority by American planetary scientists in two previous decadal surveys, and according to the investigation committee, it is the next critical step in Mars exploration after American and European probes, including Perseverance, found areas on the planet where once life could exist.
photo_camera The sample depot assembled by Perseverance at the bottom of the delta Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Their analysis reiterates the most important scientific argument in favor of the plan: examining samples in terrestrial laboratories with high-tech and highly sensitive instruments can answer a series of fundamental questions that would be impossible with instruments delivered to the planet by robotic probes. These include whether and when life existed on Mars, as well as how the planet in the solar system, once most similar to Earth, became an uninhabitable world. The researchers also remind us that lunar rock samples collected by the astronauts of the Apollo-11 mission in 1969 led to the to paradigmthat in the early stages of the Solar System, the inner planets were hit by intense asteroid and comet bombardment.
photo_camera A piece of rock sample brought back by Apollo-11. Photo: NASA/JSC
The Martian samples, they claim, can similarly revolutionize our existing knowledge of the inner solar system, only from a point of view more distant from Earth’s. In addition, the process of bringing them to Earth will provide useful experience for the United States’ “Moon to Mars” strategy, because it will reveal the exact environmental conditions to be expected, prove the planetary protection measures that protect the Earth from potential biological threats, and demonstrate a method of launching from the surface of the planet. launch.
China wins if we don’t
According to experts, the project would guarantee the retention of the leading role of the United States in space research and the accompanying global “soft power”. Another point is that China has already announced its own Mars sample return mission, Tienven-3, which would be launched between 2028-2030. According to the report, these plans “challenge the United States’ technological, engineering, and scientific leadership in Mars exploration.”
In light of China’s “pursuit of global primacy,” it is believed to be important for NASA to properly communicate how important the sample return would be from a scientific and technological perspective. In the report, which evokes the atmosphere of the Cold War space race at these points, it is also written that although China also has a similar schedule for returning Martian samples, it “lacks scientific thoroughness”. In contrast, the NASA and ESA project would bring back carefully selected samples that the international Mars research community found most valuable.
photo_camera Chu-zung and its lander captured by a small camera placed on the surface Photo: CNSA
Compared to the Chinese Space Agency (CNSA), which first successfully sent a probe to Mars in 2021, NASA is a veteran of Mars exploration. The first probe to fly past Mars (Mariner–4), the first Mars Orbiter (Mariner–9) and the first lander (Viking–1) was also American. Meanwhile, it is an undeniably beautiful achievement that China was the first to put a probe into orbit around the planet, the second country to successfully land on its surface, and then Zhu Zhong’s rover roamed the Utopia Planitia plain for nearly a year before freezing.
That China’s sample return is of wider concern to NASA professionals is well indicated by Allen Chen, a space engineer at JPL, on September 26 on X (formerly Twitter) your post. According to the specialist in charge of Perseverance’s landing system, “if we give up the Martian sample return, we will hand over the role of the leader of Mars exploration to China.”
Chen he says, that JPL is completely committed to the program, and if funding is cut now, the United States may even lose the ability to land on Mars, because it is guaranteed by keeping the engineers working at the institute. The engineer is one in his answer he also touched on the fact that he hopes that “others will take the protection of the earth’s environment as seriously as [ők]”, which is not difficult to interpret as a hint that the Chinese plans are less strict in this respect.
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2023-10-04 16:03:47
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