3 weeks ago
An illustration depicts nan Mars Ascent Vehicle rocket launching Red Planet stone samples into abstraction for an eventual return to Earth. Image courtesy of NASA
April 25 (UPI) -- A captious NASA ngo successful nan hunt for life beyond Earth, Mars Sample Return, is successful trouble. Its budget has ballooned from $5 cardinal to complete $11 billion, and nan sample return day whitethorn gaffe from nan extremity of this decade to 2040.
The mission would beryllium nan first to effort to return stone samples from Mars to Earth truthful scientists tin analyse them for signs of past life.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said during a property convention connected April 15, that nan ngo arsenic presently conceived is excessively costly and excessively slow. NASA gave backstage companies a period to taxable proposals for bringing nan samples backmost successful a quicker and much affordable way.
As an astronomer who studies cosmology and has written a book astir early missions to Mars, I've been watching nan sample return saga play out. Mars is nan nearest and champion spot to hunt for life beyond Earth, and if this eager NASA ngo unraveled, scientists would suffer their chance to study overmuch much astir nan reddish planet.
The habitability of Mars
The first NASA missions to scope nan aboveground of Mars successful 1976 revealed nan satellite arsenic a frigid desert, uninhabitable without a heavy ambiance to shield life from nan Sun's ultraviolet radiation. But studies conducted complete nan past decade propose that nan satellite whitethorn person been much warmer and wetter respective cardinal years ago.
The Curiosity and Perseverance rovers person each shown that nan planet's early situation was suitable for microbial life.
They recovered nan chemic building blocks of life and signs of aboveground h2o successful nan distant past. Curiosity, which landed connected Mars successful 2012, is still active; its twin, Perseverance, which landed connected Mars successful 2021, will play a important domiciled successful nan sample return mission.
Why astronomers want Mars samples
The first clip NASA looked for life successful a Mars stone was successful 1996. Scientists claimed they had discovered microscopic fossils of germs successful nan Martian meteorite ALH84001. This meteorite is simply a portion of Mars that landed successful Antarctica 13,000 years agone and was recovered successful 1984. Scientists disagreed complete whether nan meteorite really had ever harbored biology, and today astir scientists agree that there's not capable grounds to opportunity that nan stone contains fossils.
Several 100 Martian meteorites person been recovered connected Earth successful nan past 40 years. They're free samples that fell to Earth, truthful while it mightiness look intuitive to study them, scientists can't show wherever connected Mars these meteorites originated. Also, they were blasted disconnected nan planet's aboveground by impacts, and those convulsive events could person easy destroyed aliases altered subtle grounds of life successful nan rock.
There's nary substitute for bringing backmost samples from a region known to person been hospitable to life successful nan past. As a result, nan agency is facing a value tag of $700 cardinal per ounce, making these samples nan most costly material ever gathered.
A compelling and analyzable mission
Bringing Mars rocks backmost to Earth is nan astir challenging ngo NASA has ever attempted, and nan first shape has already started.
Perseverance has collected over 2 twelve stone and ungraded samples, depositing them connected nan level of nan Jezero Crater, a region that was astir apt erstwhile flooded pinch h2o and could person harbored life. The rover inserts nan samples successful containers nan size of trial tubes. Once nan rover fills each nan sample tubes, it will stitchery them and bring them to nan spot wherever NASA's Sample Retrieval Lander will land. The Sample Retrieval Lander includes a rocket to get nan samples into orbit astir Mars.
The European Space Agency has designed an Earth Return Orbiter, which will rendezvous pinch nan rocket successful orbit and seizure nan basketball-sized sample container. The samples will past beryllium automatically sealed into a biocontainment strategy and transferred to an Earth introduction capsule, which is portion of nan Earth Return Orbiter. After nan agelong travel home, nan introduction capsule will parachute to nan Earth's surface.
The analyzable choreography of this mission, which involves a rover, a lander, a rocket, an orbiter and nan coordination of 2 abstraction agencies, is unprecedented. It's nan culprit down nan ballooning fund and nan lengthy timeline.
Sample return breaks nan bank
Mars Sample Return has blown a spread successful NASA's budget, which threatens different missions that request funding.
The NASA halfway down nan mission, nan Jet Propulsion Laboratory, conscionable laid disconnected complete 500 employees. It's apt that Mars Sample Return's fund partially caused nan layoffs, but they besides came down to nan Jet Propulsion Laboratory having an overfull sheet of planetary missions and suffering budget cuts.
Within nan past year, an independent reappraisal board study and a study from nan NASA Office of Inspector General raised deep concerns astir nan viability of nan sample return mission. These reports described nan mission's creation arsenic overly analyzable and noted issues specified arsenic inflation, proviso concatenation problems and unrealistic costs and schedule estimates.
NASA is besides feeling nan power from Congress. For fiscal twelvemonth 2024, nan Senate Appropriations Committee trim NASA's planetary subject fund by complete half a cardinal dollars. If NASA can't support a lid connected nan costs, nan ngo mightiness moreover get canceled.
Thinking retired of nan box
Faced pinch these challenges, NASA has put retired a call for innovative designs from backstage industry, pinch a extremity of shrinking nan mission's costs and complexity. Proposals are owed by May 17, which is an highly tight timeline for specified a challenging creation effort. And it'll beryllium difficult for backstage companies to amended connected nan scheme that experts astatine nan Jet Propulsion Laboratory had complete a decade to put together.
An important imaginable subordinate successful this business is nan commercial abstraction institution SpaceX. NASA is already partnering pinch SpaceX connected America's return to nan Moon. For nan Artemis III mission, SpaceX will effort to onshore humans connected nan Moon for nan first clip successful much than 50 years.
However, nan monolithic Starship rocket that SpaceX will usage for Artemis has had only three trial flights and needs a batch much improvement earlier NASA will spot it pinch a quality cargo.
In principle, a Starship rocket could bring backmost a ample payload of Mars rocks successful a azygous two-year ngo and astatine acold little cost. But Starship comes pinch awesome risks and uncertainties. It's not clear whether that rocket could return nan samples that Perseverance has already gathered.
Starship uses a launchpad, and it would request to beryllium refueled for a return journey. But there's nary launchpad aliases fueling position astatine nan Jezero Crater. Starship is designed to transportation people, but if astronauts spell to Mars to cod nan samples, SpaceX will request a Starship rocket that's even bigger than nan 1 it has tested truthful far.
Sending astronauts besides carries other consequence and cost, and a strategy of utilizing group mightiness extremity up much analyzable than NASA's existent plan.
With each these pressures and constraints, NASA has chosen to spot whether nan backstage assemblage tin travel up pinch a winning solution. We'll cognize nan reply adjacent month.
Chris Impey is assemblage distinguished professor of astronomy astatine nan University of Arizona. This article is republished from The Conversation nether a Creative Commons license. Read nan original article.
