New Team Evaluates Plans for NASA's Mars Sample Return Program

New Team Evaluates Plans for NASA’s Mars Sample Return Program

by Clarence Oxford

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Oct 17, 2024

NASA has formed a new strategy review team to assess potential changes in the Mars Sample Return Program’s architecture, a significant initiative aimed at returning carefully selected Martian samples to Earth. This effort represents a crucial part of NASA’s broader mission to deepen understanding of the solar system and address the question of whether life ever existed on Mars.

Earlier this year, NASA commissioned various design studies, engaging both the agency’s teams and eight industry groups, to explore how to bring Martian samples back to Earth by the 2030s while minimizing costs, risks, and complexity. The strategy review team will evaluate 11 studies conducted by NASA centers, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, and industry collaborators. Their task is to recommend a primary architecture for the mission, providing associated cost and schedule estimates.

“Mars Sample Return will require a diversity of opinions and ideas to do something we’ve never done before: launch a rocket off another planet and safely return samples to Earth from more than 33 million miles away,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “It is critical that Mars Sample Return is done in a cost-effective and efficient way, and we look forward to learning the recommendations from the strategy review team to achieve our goals for the benefit of humanity.”

The goal of returning samples from Mars has been a prominent international objective in planetary exploration for over 30 years. The program is a collaborative effort between NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA). NASA’s Perseverance rover has been collecting samples that will provide insights into the geological history of Mars, its climate evolution, and possible risks for future human exploration. These samples are also key to NASA’s ongoing search for signs of ancient life on the Red Planet.

Expected by the end of 2024, the team’s report will review various options for a comprehensive mission design, potentially integrating multiple elements from the studies. The team’s mandate does not include making specific recommendations for partners or procurement strategies. Chartered under the Cornell Technical Services contract, the strategy review team may request support from a NASA analysis team, composed of government employees and expert consultants, to assess programmatic aspects such as cost and schedule for the suggested architecture.

The Mars Sample Return Strategy Review Team is led by Jim Bridenstine, a former NASA administrator, and includes:

– Greg Robinson, former program director, James Webb Space Telescope

– Lisa Pratt, former planetary protection officer, NASA

– Steve Battel, president, Battel Engineering; professor of practice, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

– Phil Christensen, regents professor, School of Earth and Space Exploration, Arizona State University, Tempe

– Eric Evans, director emeritus and fellow, MIT Lincoln Lab

– Jack Mustard, professor of Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Science, Brown University

– Maria Zuber, E. A. Griswold professor of Geophysics and presidential advisor for science and technology policy, MIT

The NASA Analysis Team, led by David Mitchell, chief program management officer at NASA Headquarters, comprises:

– John Aitchison, program business manager (acting), Mars Sample Return

– Brian Corb, program control/schedule analyst, NASA Headquarters

– Steve Creech, assistant deputy associate administrator for Technical, Moon to Mars Program Office, NASA Headquarters