NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter unlocks its rotor blades to fly to Mars.
Image: NASA
NASA’s Perseverance rover collected its first samples from Mars a year ago, and they will likely arrive on Earth in 2033, but without the help of Europe’s sample-collecting rovers.
NASA launched Perseverance in 2020, nine years behind the Curiosity rover, and landed it on the red planet on February 18, 2021, to explore and retrieve material from Mars’ Jezero Crater.
NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter took pictures of the landing.
Perseverance collected its first rock samples in September 2021, and they are now in sealed sample tubes, but stuck on the fourth planet from the Sun. Whether they actually return to Earth is not a given and requires help from NASA rovers and the European Space Agency (ESA).
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NASA says it has finished revising the system requirements for its Mars sample return campaign, which now excludes ESA’s Airbus-built Sample Fetch Rover and its associated second lander. This decision was made after a meeting between NASA and ESA officials regarding the returned samples from Mars earlier this month.
The vehicle to return samples from Mars to Earth is the Earth Return Orbiter, which NASA plans to launch in the fall of 2027, followed by its Sample Retrieval Lander in the summer of 2028. NASA released a sketch of the Sample Retrieval Lander in April. Samples from Mars are expected to arrive on Earth in 2033, NASA said in a press release.
The changed list of rovers means that Perseverance will be the primary means of delivering samples to the Sample Retrieval Module.
“The conceptual design phase is when every aspect of the mission plan is put under the microscope,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA’s associate administrator for science.
“There are some significant and beneficial changes to the plan that can be directly attributed to Perseverance’s recent successes at Jezero and the amazing performance of our Mars helicopter.”
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The sampler lander will have two helicopters collecting samples. Their design is based on Ingenuity’s helicopter, which has outlived its intended life by a year. The new helicopters are a “secondary capability” for sample retrieval.
Despite the removal of ESA’s Sample Fetch Rover from the Mars sample return program, NASA says ESA’s Earth Return Orbiter and its NASA-provided capture, retention and return system “remain vital elements of the program architecture.” .
NASA plans to enter its one-year preliminary design phase in October, during which time it will create engineering prototypes of the mission’s main components.
For what it’s worth, ESA’s 22 participating nations will “consider discontinuing development of the Sample Fetch Rover” at their next meeting in September, according to NASA.
ESA officials say they remain committed to its return-to-Earth orbiter.
“ESA continues full speed development on both the Earth Return Orbiter, which will make the historic round trip from Earth to Mars and back; as well as the sample transfer arm, which will robotically place the sample tubes aboard the orbital sample container prior to its launch from the surface of the Red Planet,” said David Parker, ESA’s Director of Human and Robotic Exploration.
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