Mars Sample Return Options

[Rakhir]

Next phase reached in definition of Mars Sample Return mission

http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMJAGNFGLE_index_0.html

[John Whitehead]

Some 'current events' which indicate an increasing emphasis on MSR:

January 2008: This month's issue of Aerospace America has an article titled "Mars Exploration: Digging Deeper," by Leonard David, contributing writer. MSR is featured prominently. The argument is made that the Mars Program needs to keep doing new and exciting things to justify its 46% share of NASA's planetary budget. More orbiter and rover missions alone might not be enough to maintain excitement and political support. On the other side of that coin is a concern that MSR might displace ongoing Mars efforts to such a large degree that there would be a net detriment to the Mars Program and to Mars science. One interviewed science leader expressed the importance of having MSR become an ongoing program to encompass multiple missions, rather than one win-or-lose flagship mission.

Given all these concerns, a way must be found to make MSR affordable for multiple attempts within the current budget (just over a half billion US dollars per year). However, the article did not delve into the unique technology needs for MSR.

My own comments: Is there anything that affects the mission scale and cost more so than the need to deliver a launch vehicle and its ground support equipment to another planet? Is there a more direct path through the above dilemma than building a miniature launch vehicle (or at least finding out definitively how small one can be)?

February 20-21, 2008: The Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group (MEPAG) is meeting in Southern California. Sample return is on the agenda for this discussion among (mostly) geologists. See http://mepag.jpl.nasa.gov/meeting/feb-08/index.html

April 21-23, 2008: A science meeting in Albequerque is named "Ground Truth from Mars: Science Payoff from a Sample Return Mission." Sponsors include the Lunar and Planetary Institute and NASA. Discussion topics include Mars exploration strategy, sampling strategy, and specific topics in geology and astrobiology. See www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/msr2008/8

Also in the near future, NASA is planning a MSR Technology Workshop to discuss the following topics:
1. Rendezvous and Sample Capture (in Mars orbit).
2. Earth Entry Vehicle (the part that lands in Utah like Stardust did).
3. Returned Sample Handling Technologies on Earth.
4. Sample Acquisition, Sample Handling, and Encapsulation on Mars (packaging for shipment to Earth).
5. Forward Planetary Protection and Organic Contamination (how to not contaminate Mars with Earth life and related chemistry).
6. Entry, Descent, and Precision Landing (for Mars arrival, improved from prior Mars landers).
7. Back Planetary Protection (how to avoid any possibility that Mars life or molecules could harm life on Earth).
8. Mars Ascent Vehicle.

[tty]

My own comments: Is there anything that affects the mission scale and cost more so than the need to deliver a launch vehicle and its ground support equipment to another planet? Is there a more direct path through the above dilemma than building a miniature launch vehicle (or at least finding out definitively how small one can be)?

As far as I can see there are three ways of acquiring martian samples without having to go all the way down into the gravity well and up again, and we have already been over them several times:

1. a Stardust type mission to collect dust from high in the Martian atmosphere

2. a sample return mission to Deimos or, preferably, Phobos. There is almost bound to be martian material there.

3. Go to Antarctica/Arabia etc and search for more martian meteorites (incidentally a project to go around the world's museums, particular the smaller ones, and see what they already have would very likely be successful - museum drawers are frequently the optimum locality to look for things)