At a press conference organized by NASA on January 7, the results of discussions on plans to implement the Mars Sample Return mission, which aims to bring soil and rock samples from Mars to Earth, were presented.. These samples were collected by the Perseverance rover, and they are in special titanium tubes on the surface of the Red Planet.. NASA has presented two ways to implement the Mars Sample Return mission, but the final decision will not be made until mid-2026. According to preliminary data, this mission may take place later than a similar mission that China plans to implement, writes Space.
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Bringing 30 titanium tubes containing samples of Martian rocks and soil to Earth turned out to be much more difficult than NASA expected.. Although these samples can tell about the history of the Red Planet and whether there was extraterrestrial life there.
The cost of the Mars Sample Return mission has grown from the original $3 billion to $10-11 billion. Also, the deadline for the implementation of Mrs., as shown by preliminary reports, has shifted from the early 2030s closer to 2040. Therefore, NASA decided last year to find a way to reduce costs, and also to do everything possible to ensure that samples from Mars were delivered much earlier than in 15 years.
As a result, NASA turned to private companies that could help solve these problems.. As it became known at a press conference, the US space agency has now decided to focus on two strategies for implementing the Mars Sample Return mission, which differ in the way the necessary equipment is placed on Mars.
The first strategy involves using a system called a “sky crane” to land on Mars, with which the Perseverance rover landed on the Red Planet in 2021. The second strategy involves the use of a landing system provided by private companies.
Selecting a " It is estimated that proposals from private companies could reduce the cost of the mission to between $5.8 billion and $7.1 billion.. In any case, each of these strategies represents a cheaper and simplified version of the original plan.
The final decision regarding which strategy will be chosen will be made in mid-2026. It is assumed that in this case, a spacecraft to deliver samples from Mars to Earth will be launched in 2030. And the lander, which will collect titanium tubes and place them in a special rocket that will send samples to a spacecraft in orbit, will be launched in 2031. Thus, the first ever samples of Martian soil can be delivered to Earth by 2035. Of course, if NASA receives the necessary funding. Previously, the start of the Mars Sample Return mission was planned for 2028 and thus samples from Mars were supposed to arrive on Earth in 2031-2032.
Based on this, the United States may lose the space race to China, which has its own similar mission to Mars planned.. China plans to send spacecraft to collect Martian samples in 2028. The plan for this mission calls for them to be delivered to Earth in 2031.
Although it is worth noting that the Perseverance rover collected samples for several years in different places on Mars, and therefore they are very valuable from a scientific point of view. And the Chinese lander will collect samples from only one place, which may not show the whole picture of the history of the Red Planet.
That's why NASA Administrator Bill Nelson says the US and China have very different missions.. But still, the country that will be the first to deliver samples from Mars to Earth will forever go down in history. There are only a few years left to find out which of the two countries will win the Mars space race.
As Focus already wrote, for the first time in 135,000 years, an amazing event awaits us, because next week, perhaps the brightest comet of 2025 will be visible. Comet C/2024 G3 is expected to be much brighter than last year's brightest comet, C/2023 A3.
Focus also wrote that for the first time scientists were able to observe several dozen individual stars at once in a galaxy at a distance of 6.5 billion light years from us. Previously it was extremely difficult to do this.