New Delhi: The space industry has put forward many ideas to improve NASA’s $11 billion, 15-year project to collect and bring back samples from Mars. NASA was impressed by seven of these ideas and gave $1.5 million contracts to the companies behind them for further development.
Ten studies, including two from NASA centers and contributions from the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Applied Physics Laboratory, were selected following a request for proposals in April. The titles of the proposals may not provide comprehensive insight into the plans, as the purpose of the study period is to help NASA assess the feasibility of alternative mission designs or elements for safely bringing Martian samples home.
The request for proposal specified that studies could involve complete overhauls of the mission design or incorporate elements from NASA’s MSR mission or Artemis program. NASA decided to involve private industry after acknowledging the complexity of its MSR architecture. The mission involves various components such as the Perseverance rover, a sample retrieval lander, a Mars Ascent Vehicle, and an Earth return orbiter, all of which need to operate seamlessly for sample collection and transport.
Following a recommendation from an independent review board last year to reconsider the mission design due to technical concerns and high costs, NASA aims to develop a less complex mission design that reduces overall costs and facilitates the earliest possible return date.
