NASA is considering two options for getting Perseverance’s Mars samples to Earth
The previous plan for Mars Sample Return
In a press briefing today, NASA officials announced it is considering two options for getting Perseverance’s Mars samples to Earth sooner and what it hopes will for less money.
In the first option, NASA would use already available and operational rockets to launch a larger rover to Mars, landing using a sky crane similar but larger than the one used successfully by both Curiosity and Perseverance. This rover would also have nuclear power system used by those rovers, as well as an arm similar to theirs, simplifying the design process. Under this option it appears NASA is abandoning the use of a helicopter for retrieval, as had previous been considered.
In the second option, NASA would rely on what administrator Bill Nelson called “the heavy-lifte capability of the commercial sector.” He specifically mentions SpaceX’s Starship/Superheavy and Blue Origin’s New Glenn, but added that they are looking at the capabilities of the entire private sector right now.
In both operations, the retrieval rover would clean on Mars the outside of the cores to prevent them from contaminating Earth with Martian particles. Previously that cleaning process was to take place in space on the way back. They claim this change also simplifies things.
The final decision on which option to choose is now scheduled for 2026. NASA likely wishes to see more progress with getting Starship/Superheavy as well as New Glenn operational before deciding.
Note that at this press conference very little was said about the Mars ascent rocket, presently supposedly being built by Lockheed Martin. This is essentially building a full scale rocket only slightly less powerful that Earth-based rockets by a company that has never done it before. It seems the second option is likely going to include other options and other rocket companies for this task. The lack of mention suggests NASA was uncomfortable with mentioning this possibility.
In general, this project still feels incomplete and poorly thought out. Major components — such as the ascent vehicle — have not been worked out properly. The officials claimed these changes would make it possible to bring the samples back in the ’35-’39 time frame but I don’t believe it. What it does do is guarantee a large cash influx to NASA, something administrator Bill Nelson lobbied for during the conference, for the next decade-plus. And I think that was the real goal.
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In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
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The previous plan for Mars Sample Return
In a press briefing today, NASA officials announced it is considering two options for getting Perseverance’s Mars samples to Earth sooner and what it hopes will for less money.
In the first option, NASA would use already available and operational rockets to launch a larger rover to Mars, landing using a sky crane similar but larger than the one used successfully by both Curiosity and Perseverance. This rover would also have nuclear power system used by those rovers, as well as an arm similar to theirs, simplifying the design process. Under this option it appears NASA is abandoning the use of a helicopter for retrieval, as had previous been considered.
In the second option, NASA would rely on what administrator Bill Nelson called “the heavy-lifte capability of the commercial sector.” He specifically mentions SpaceX’s Starship/Superheavy and Blue Origin’s New Glenn, but added that they are looking at the capabilities of the entire private sector right now.
In both operations, the retrieval rover would clean on Mars the outside of the cores to prevent them from contaminating Earth with Martian particles. Previously that cleaning process was to take place in space on the way back. They claim this change also simplifies things.
The final decision on which option to choose is now scheduled for 2026. NASA likely wishes to see more progress with getting Starship/Superheavy as well as New Glenn operational before deciding.
Note that at this press conference very little was said about the Mars ascent rocket, presently supposedly being built by Lockheed Martin. This is essentially building a full scale rocket only slightly less powerful that Earth-based rockets by a company that has never done it before. It seems the second option is likely going to include other options and other rocket companies for this task. The lack of mention suggests NASA was uncomfortable with mentioning this possibility.
In general, this project still feels incomplete and poorly thought out. Major components — such as the ascent vehicle — have not been worked out properly. The officials claimed these changes would make it possible to bring the samples back in the ’35-’39 time frame but I don’t believe it. What it does do is guarantee a large cash influx to NASA, something administrator Bill Nelson lobbied for during the conference, for the next decade-plus. And I think that was the real goal.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
Heaven forbid NASA getting a good budget.
LM make missiles, especially the missile in a box for US Army & Navy – so why do the “lob it into the air” routine?
Sometime I think these people in NASA contracts operate on the “wouldn’t it be cool” vs. KISS.
““wouldn’t it be cool” vs. KISS.”
SpaceX demonstrating that you can have your KISS and Neet-o!, too.
With heavy lift and retro rocket landing just send commercial off the shelf lab to Mars. Save so much money and get results faster with no two year return delays. No limit on sample sizes. No need to support multiple labs with huge university admin overheads back on earth.
Jeff Wright,
Given how it wastes such a large proportion of what it does get, NASA will never have a “good” budget in the sense of getting as much as it would like. The Rube Goldbergian farce that has been – and continues to be – MSR is just one more example. One can excuse at least some of the SLS-Orion dumpster fire as it was forced on NASA by Congress. But MSR is all NASA’s and it ain’t pretty.
AO1,
I’m going to go way out on a limb here and guess that the basis of “fling it into the air” was that there was no way to add an armored vertical box launcher onto the already substantial mass budget for the MSR retrieval rover.
What Am I Missing Here Department
If Elon Musk is at all serious about going to Mars — and there is every indication that he is, and will — then what on earth (or Mars) is the “need” for an automated sample return? Soon enough, there will be people there to do the job in situ.
Meanwhile, if this is so urgent, GerogeC has it right. If we are looking for signs of life (or whatever) on Mars, then just send a better equipped automated lab there to do the job. Those of us who are old enough remember the Viking missions, but — now — the Never A Straight Answer Agency seems to believe that we can *only* detect signs of biology (or, again, whatever it is that they claim that they are looking for in these samples) in a lab here on earth. (What kind of lab, BTW, could Superheavy-Starship, New Glenn, or even the SLS, send to Mars to do the job, and at what fraction of the cost of the current sample return mission?)
Frankly, the Mars sample return concept makes SLS / Apollo look rational and fiscally sound by comparison, even if there were an actual “need” for such a thing. In passing, I wonder what Mr. Musk thinks about this in the context of DOGE.
A significant take-away from the November election is that a lot of people are sick and tired (to put it mildly) of being lied to and gaslighted by “authorities” such as the nice folks who presently run NASA, and killing the entire Mars Sample Return boondoggle would make a fine first shot across their bow. Robert is right; rethink EVERYTHING and then begin making some rational, reality-based decisions about what is is that we are actually trying to do.
PS — Again, for the senior citizens among us. Does anybody else recall Apollo 12 astronauts Charles Conrad, Jr. and Alan L. Bean walking over to the Surveyor 3 lunar lander and clipping off some samples to carry back to earth?
https://science.nasa.gov/mission/surveyor-3/
Now *that,* boys and girls, was a “sample return mission” back when NASA was the real deal, and people could still think clearly.
I think the answer you will get is: Planetary Protection.
At some point, NASA is bound to adjust down the PP status for much of Mars. But I doubt that Jezero Crater ever gets moved off Category IVb status. And it is not going to be possible to sterilize a Starship to Cat IVb levels, let alone one with humans on board.
But certainly, SpaceX could do sample collection at whatever site they do end up going to — Arcadia Planitia, or wherever.
Richard M — Thank you. A logical, coherent explanation.
The question then becomes how do you go about getting the necessary field samples to determine what levels of PP are justified at these locations. And where and how is the analysis best done? How about either a manned or a fully automated lab orbiting Mars? (Once again, it seems like some kind of a Mars quarantine with an orbiting station and automated probes / rovers was a standard trope of 1950s science fiction. Perhaps not a bad idea even today.)
https://www.polytechnique-insights.com/en/columns/space/voyage-to-mars-myth-or-reality/
Which begs the larger — and as yet unanswered question — of whether even Arcadia Planitia might harbor some form of past or present indigenous life. That is, absent some kind of prior determination, how do we know that it is prudent to land *anywhere* on Mars?
With Mr. Musk’s accelerated timeline for sending human beings to Mars, finding unequivocal evidence of life (or not) on this world would seem to be of primary importance in terms of making logical decisions about establishing a human presence there, yet the Never A Straight Answer agency keeps on telling us that an up to date, new technology version of the Viking missions is “impossible”* and that they can only look for “signs of life” (as at Jezero Crater) but yet not for life itself.
*Or that looking for life can only be done on a “step by step” (drip, drip, drip,) fashion, and the Viking approach was fundamentally flawed.
Perhaps SpaceX can design and deliver a “New Viking” probe to Mars to check this out. God knows, if we wait for NASA to do this, it would probably be a decade or so *after* a Starship has already landed somewhere.