NASA, ESA to Collaborate on Bringing Rocks Back from Mars

(Photo : Pixabay/karlfrey)

After decades of depending on meteorites that came from Mars for composition analysis, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is working with the European Space Agency (ESA) in pushing through Mission Perseverance. The said mission will allow Martian rocks to be brought back to earth for research.

After the revelation of the existence of water on the Moon rocks that were brought by Apollo astronauts, it is the same idea with the Martian Rocks, where it could lead to the revelation about the evolution and how the Red Planet is formed.

Scheduled on July of this year if not interrupted by any COVID-19 related issues, the Perseverance is a mission overseen by JPL or the NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratorye. The sample return campaign includes 22 ESA member states upon agreeing on last year's Space19+ Ministerial Council in Seville, Spain that they will finance the campaign.

Involving 53 million kilometers (33 million mi) trip, collecting samples, launching a return vehicle to Earth, and a mission that will span a decade and involve four launches, the Perseverance's sample-return mission will be an unprecedented feat in space exploration's history.

Once the mission touched down the Red Planet, the rover will explore Mars' surface for over a year, drilling for soil samples, searching for evidence of past and its present life. While the samples intended to return to Earth, it will be stored in the rover's cache instrument where a series of cigar-sized metal cylinders will be left on the surface for pick up on a later date.

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Initially, NASA's crewed mission to Mars eyed to take place in the 2030s including the astronauts picking up the samples and taking it home. However, the Sample Return campaign envisions using the SFR or Sample Fetch Rover that will be flying to Mars alongside SRL or NASA's Sample Retrieval Lander mission in 2026.

Moreover, by August of 2028, the Sample Retrieval Lander will land near Perseverance, where the Sample Fetch Rover will deploy to retrieve the samples left and place them in storage and after that, it will be delivered to a rocket aboard the lander also known as the MAV or Mars Ascent Vehicle, which will blast off in spring of 2029 and will reach a low Mars orbit and once it is there, the ESA's ERO or Earth Return Orbiter will rendezvous with it in July of 2028 and bring it back to the planet.

If everything goes according to plan, canisters carrying the samples will land Earth in the spring of 2032.

The said mission will be able to ensure that the samples obtained by Perseverance are returned to Earth as soon as possible in case NASA's plans for sending astronauts to Mars are delayed and while still in the early phases of planning, the ESA is eager to enlist people with the necessary expertise and keep the ball rolling.

The collaboration will benefit researchers who study Mars samples on Earth through being able to use instruments that are too large and powerful to be included in robotic missionse. Their efforts will also benefit from the sharing of resources and results with the samples which can be transferred or shipped around the world to the best possible institutions.