- 3023 - MARS - returning rock samples to Earth? - Fundamental questions about Mars remain related to its potential for life; the geological history of the planet; the history of its climate and the driving forces behind these changes; the evolution of geologic processes and the interior composition and structure; and more recent atmospheric, polar, surface, and interior processes.
--------------- 3023 - MARS - returning rock samples to Earth?
- Returning some samples of Mars oil and rocks to Earth for detailed analysis is a dream for scientists. NASA and its European counterpart, ESA, want to make the dream a reality.
- It's worthwhile, but it isn't going to be easy.
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- Scientists believe that the Mars sample-return program should proceed because its scientific value will be extraordinarily high, with the potential for world-changing discoveries about Earth's nearest planetary neighbor, and possibly about an independent origin of life on another world.
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- The next launch window is in 2028. The budget needed is between $3.8 billion and $4.4 billion.
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- As envisioned, the Mars sample-return program is a vast endeavor shared by two large space agencies that will require several separate spacecraft operating over more than a decade, not to mention the first rocket launch from the Red Planet's surface and a host of measures to prevent sample contamination.
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- The mission will also require a new “sample-curation facility“. Mars exploration is never easy. The Red Planet is notorious for its tricky launch calendar, with favorable opportunities spaced 26 months apart, slow communications, and perilous landing conditions.
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- NASA and ESA also hope to launch the mission while the Mars 2020 rover Perseverance, currently on its way to the Red Planet, is still operational. The rover will land on Mars on February 18, 2021, and work on the Red Planet's surface for at least one Martian year (687 Earth days).
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- NASA has its hands full with other ambitious projects like the James Webb and Roman space telescopes and the Europa Clipper mission.
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- Mars exploration today is at a critical juncture. A series of successful orbital and landed spacecraft missions have revealed a planet with:
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• A variety of environments that could be or could have been habitable to microbes,
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• An early, more Earth-like climate that changed dramatically over time,
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• A geologically recent epoch of ice ages,
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• A dynamic planet that still changes today.
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- These missions have also provided a first look at the processes by which the planet has evolved, addressing fundamental questions of planetary evolution and providing a valuable end-member in the comparative study of terrestrial planets both inside our solar system and beyond.
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- The program of orbital reconnaissance and ever more capable landed missions has taken the program to the point that it can undertake the challenge of returning carefully chosen samples from the Martian surface for intensive study by the full capabilities of laboratories here on Earth.
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- The Perseverance rover will be landing in Jezero Crater, where it will explore an ancient deltaic environment and collect samples for possible future return.
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- As important as Mars Sample Return (MSR) is--and it will result in a major step forward for planetary science--examination of material from a single site will not tell us everything that we need to know about Mars.
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- Mars, like Earth, has a rich, complex history, with different locations capturing snapshots of its path in space and time. The history of one site must be integrated with a global context provided by both global observations and detailed local measurements at representative sites across the planet.
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- Fundamental questions about Mars will remain related to its potential for life; the geological history of the planet; the history of its climate and the driving forces behind these changes; the evolution of geologic processes and the interior composition and structure; and more recent atmospheric, polar, surface, and interior processes.
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- Currently, all planned surface missions are designed to be solar-powered, but adding nuclear power may make the mission less vulnerable.
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- But despite all the complications, bringing Martian rocks to Earth is worth it. The science would be very exciting.
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- We've done a lot of analyses with Mars rocks on the surface of Mars, and clearly those have been very valuable. But what you can do with a rock bringing it back and working in a terrestrial lab will produce a timeline essentially of the history of what was going on in this crater.
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February 4, 2021 MARS - returning rock samples to Earth? 3023
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