NASA taps Lockheed Martin to build Mars parcel pickup rocket
- Reference: 1644303490
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2022/02/08/mars_ascent_vehicle_contract_awarded/
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Perseverance is equipped with a drill and 43 sample tubes. Its mission plan calls for those tubes to be filled, then left on the Martian surface so that they can be retrieved and returned to Earth. The rover has collected six samples to date.
While the rover has merrily gone about its sample-collection business, much of the hardware for the Mars Sample Return Program remains on the drawing board. Until today, no contractor had even been appointed to build the rocket to lift the samples from Mars.
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That changed when NASA [2]announced that Lockheed Martin Space had been awarded the gig, as part of a contract valued at up to $194 million.
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The firm has the task of building the MAV, which will journey to Mars with another craft called the Sample Retrieval Lander (SRL).
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A NASA illustration of the
sample retrieval mission. Click to enlarge
NASA's plan is for the MAV to fit inside the SRL, with the latter craft also carrying whatever is needed to retrieve the cache of samples collected by Perseverance and load them into the MAV. That's probably going to require a robot of some sort.
Once the sample tubes are stowed on the MAV, it will launch into Mars orbit and meet yet another craft: the Earth Return Orbiter (ERO) spacecraft sent by the European Space Agency. The MAV will hand Perseverance's samples to the ERO, which will return them to Earth. Airbus has started work on the ERO design and in June 2021 its efforts passed a Preliminary Design Review conducted by the European Space Agency.
[6]NASA's Curiosity finds signs of ancient life on Mars. Or maybe not. More data needed
[7]NASA's Mars InSight trips into safe mode and ESA's Sentinel-1B gives scientists the silent treatment
[8]Mars helicopter mission (which Apache says is powered byLog4j) overcomes separate network glitch to confirm new flight record
[9]ExoMars parachutes just about good enough to land rover safely on the Red Planet
If all goes well, the SRL and MAV will launch in 2026, the ERO will return in 2030, and in 2031 The Register will come up with some fresh Mars-tastic puns to cover the initial scientific assessments of the samples.
Lockheed Martin built NASA's first Mars landers – the Viking program – and says it has been a part of every one of the space agency's Red Planet forays since. Now it has around four years to design something very novel indeed. ®
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[2] https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-selects-developer-for-rocket-to-retrieve-first-samples-from-mars
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[5] https://regmedia.co.uk/2022/02/08/supplied_nasa_illustration_of_mars_sample_retrieval_mission.jpg
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2022/01/19/nasa_curiosity_carbon/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2022/01/12/insight_sentinel/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2021/12/16/ingenuity_mars_helicopter_log4j_network/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2021/12/14/esa_parachutes_worked/
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Ice mining
To get back to Earth a Starship has to land (and probably devastate) an unprepared area of Mars, deploy lots of solar panels, ice mining and fuel processing equipment. Although solar panels work better near the equator the ice mining equipment needs to be much nearer one of the poles than Perseverance. The good news is that the rock storm caused by a Starship landing (or lift-off) will be a easily far enough away from Perseverance but it will be a very long walk to collect the samples.
This could be solved with a solar powered helicopter (or a flock of them if reliability is a concern) but does not address one of the key requirements of US space exploration. Certain contractors have bi-partisan support and will get funding because they spread huge amounts of money over many different states. SpaceX does not waste anything like enough money.
Re: Ice mining
maybe one of the Boston Dynamics robots could "fetch" the samples...
Re: Ice mining
Well to be fair if SpaceX get a manned mission to Mars in 2026 they don't actually need to send the samples back. They can just analyse them on Mars and email the results back.
Alternative view. Elon gets there first but accidentally crushes the sample tubes under his bootheel when doing his "One Giant step for Elon" speech.
Alternative alternative view. The Tesla Roadster crash lands on Mars smashing Perseverance to bits just before it drops the tubes off.
The whole approach seems odd to me, having two different vehicles being designed and built by different contractors then being sent to Mars at similar times.
Surely, even if the one delivering the sample collector couldn't just hang around and wait for the return journey, at least using the same basic design/build for both would make sense in economies of scale and minimising risk.
Which two vehicles are you referring to? The ones travelling from Earth to Mars (and back)?
The craft required to get a lander (with robot and rocket) to Mars orbit would have to be much bigger than tje craft required to return the samples.
You might use a flatbed truck to deliver sampling and retrieval kit to site. The actual samples you might bring back by motorcycle, if fuel is at a premium.
Flatbed
Useful analogy, thanks.
Maybe put the motorcycle on the back of the truck too?
Nothing there...
It's a lot of money for a bit of mud.
A lucky escape
> Mars parcel pickup rocket ... Until today, no contractor had even been appointed
If NASA was going solely on price, they might have chosen DPD.
I can just imagine, instead of sending a rocket, they would just have slipped a card under NASA's door to say that they tried to pick up the stuff from Mars, but nobody was in.
Might be cheaper to just ask spacex to bring some samples back. Their tentative date for a first manned mission is currently 2026.
While they're way behind on their original pre-starship estimates, given the rate they're progressing right now, I will be surprised if they don't come close to achieving this. Especially if they hit their target of an unmanned mission in 2024.