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NASA is not the only space agency to be hungry for the red planet. The European Space Agency would also like to take samples on Mars. She is now preparing her own mission project that will bring back priceless pieces from our neighboring planet.
ESA's plans will certainly work in cooperation with NASA. In fact, NASA's next Mars 2020 mission, scheduled for launch next summer, would allow for actual sampling. But after that, the plans of both agencies are still under construction. In the 2020s, agencies hope to collect rock, soil and air fragments that the March 2020 rover collects, and bring them back to Earth for close study.
A plan in several stages
The current ESA proposal provides for two more launches after March 2020. The first is a small rover whose job is simply to circulate and collect the samples that Mars 2020 has already drilled, scraped or otherwise captured and left behind. carefully marked deposits. The ESA mobile will collect them in a container and load it on a Mars Ascent vehicle, delivered to the surface of Mars at the landing of the landing gear. This ship, the first to take off from the surface of Mars, will send the samples into Mars Orbit.
A second launch would be for ESA's Earth Return Orbiter, which would travel to Mars orbit to collect the samples and then return them to Earth for storage. Although it sounds simple, the logistics and technical difficulty of two orbiters meeting and mooring in an extraterrestrial world, then flying to Earth successfully, are a challenge and an achievement in their own right – not to mention the priceless samples they will carry.
Planetary protection
Once the craft has made its precious cargo on Earth, the concerns are different. One of the main drivers of interest for Mars is whether there is or, to a lesser degree, a life on the red planet. And whether or not the microbial life is captured in the samples, it is essential to understand the chemistry that these samples have undergone to understand the present and the past of Mars. All of this means that it is essential that the samples are not contaminated by life on earth or even by the chemistry of the Earth, like the oxygen that permeates our air, once they return to the mainland.
NASA and ESA, as well as the International Council for Space Research (COSPAR) and the Japan Space Agency (JAXA) have all committed themselves to various forms of global protection. Because no one knows for sure if Mars has had or been saved, space agencies are engaged in complete decontamination processes when they bring back materials from other worlds. Until now, the protection of the planet was mainly aimed at protecting the other worlds of the Earth – so it was necessary to make sure to decontaminate the spacecraft before sending them crashing on Mars, Venus or Earth. Saturn. This will be one of the first times we have to protect the Earth from other worlds.
However, decontamination can damage some samples as it may involve subjecting them to intense heat, chemicals or radiation. Researchers are already studying the type of tests to be performed in isolated rooms before sterilization. Moreover, the simple passage of time may affect certain samples, such as those collected in the atmosphere of Mars, because the different substances can decompose, even in isolation (our atmosphere and Mars) both undergo constant chemical changes. And of course, looking at some samples might destroy them, because some tests require, for example, crushing rocks. The order of the tests must therefore be defined in advance.
ESA will formalize its sample return mission plans in November at its next ministerial council, called Space19 +. It is a meeting of ESA Member States every two or three years to raise funds and proposals for the coming years.
NASA and ESA are both committed to the idea of a sample return mission. But even with the first step, March 2020, which will take off next summer, there are still a lot of details to be settled on how to bring the rover samples home.
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