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In 100 days, NASA’s Perseverance rover will land on the Martian surface and begin its mission on the Red Planet. While traveling through Mars, the robotic explorer will collect rock samples and put them aside for a future return to Earth.
The Mars Sample Return mission is the first attempt of its kind to collect physical samples from another planet and examine them in a laboratory here on Earth.
As difficult as it may sound, NASA just got the “ green light ” from an independent review panel which confirmed that the space agency was in fact ready to take on this unprecedented task – but not in its initial schedule.
NASA on Tuesday released a review report of its sample return mission to Mars. The report concludes that the space agency is ready for the next mission that will revolutionize what scientists know about the evolution of Mars.
NASA formed the Mars Sample Return Independent Review Board to assess the agency’s initial concepts on how to carry out the mission.
“After a thorough review of the agency’s planning over the past few years, the IRB unanimously believes that NASA is now ready to complete the MSR program, the next step in robotic exploration of Mars. David Thompson, retired CEO of Orbital ATK and chairman of the board, said Tuesday in a media conference call.
The review board included 10 scientists and engineers who met over 25 sessions from late August 2019 to late October this year. The board made 44 recommendations to address potential areas of concern regarding the program’s scope and management, technical approach, timing and funding, according to NASA.
“As the first round trip mission to another planet, the [Mars Sample Return] The program is a very ambitious, technically demanding and operationally complex program, “added Thompson.” Therefore, we strongly recommend that the program be conducted with rigorous technical and managerial approaches fully consistent with those of recent missions of the NASA.
One of the main recommendations of the council is to postpone the launch date of the Mars Sample Return mission from 2026 to 2027 or 2028.
The initial plan, which is still in the early stages of development, includes two launches for the year 2026 – one to send the European Space Agency’s Earth Orbiter back to Mars and the other to ensure NASA sample recovery sample tracking.
The orbiter would circle Mars, while NASA’s lander would drop a hover lander, the Sample Fetch Rover provided by ESA, and a small rocket, the Mars Ascent Vehicle, near the Perseverance rover landing site. in the Jezero crater.
This is where Perseverance will store the samples once its robotic arm collects them.
The rover will then collect the rock samples, which will be sealed in tubes, and return them to the small rocket. The rocket will launch into orbit of Mars and drop the samples in mid-flight, where they will then be picked up by ESA’s orbiting spacecraft.
If all goes as planned and these complex space maneuvers are successful, scientists will be able to get their hands on the very first sample returned from another planet.
And it’s not just any planet. Mars is of particular interest to scientists because of its complex history. Although Mars is a dry and desolate world today, scientists believe the Red Planet was once a hot and humid world that could have harbored some form of life.
Examining Martian rocks will help scientists understand how the planet evolved over billions of years and look for signs of ancient Martian life.
Previous NASA rovers analyzed the rocks as they roamed the surface of the Red Planet. But laboratory analysis is on a completely different level.
Maria Zuber, board member and vice president of research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, compared it to moon samples returned by the Apollo mission.
“We’ve done a lot of analysis with rocks from Mars on the surface of Mars, clearly these have been very helpful in improving our understanding of the early history of the planet,” Zuber said on the teleconference.
“But what you can do by bringing a stone back to the lab, by analogy with the moon rocks we brought back 50 years ago, we’re still making cutting edge discoveries because the lab’s instrumentation has continued to improve. “she said. .
By analyzing Martian rocks, scientists can establish the age of a sample and understand their geological context, which would allow them to reconstruct the history of the area from which the samples were collected, according to Zuber.
NASA will review and address the council’s recommendations over the next year before starting to finalize its plans for the sample return mission.
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