Mars Sample Return

Mars Sample Retrieval Lander 1 Concept Illustration.jpg
April 21, 2022

This illustration shows a concept for a proposed NASA Mars lander-and-rocket combination that would play a key role in returning to Earth samples of Mars material collected by the Perseverance rover. This Sample Retrieval Lander would carry a small rocket (about 10 feet, or 3 meters, tall) called the Mars Ascent Vehicle to the Martian surface. After using a robotic arm to load the rover’s sealed sample tubes into a container in the nose cone of the rocket, the lander would launch the Mars Ascent Vehicle into orbit around the Red Planet.

The lander and rocket are part of the multimission Mars Sample Return program being planned by NASA and ESA (European Space Agency). The program would use multiple robotic vehicles to pick up and ferry sealed tubes containing Mars samples already collected by NASA's Perseverance rover, for transport to laboratories on Earth.

For more information, visit: mars.nasa.gov/msr.

Credit

NASA/JPL-Caltech

Mars Sample Return Concept Illustration.jpg
April 21, 2022

This illustration shows a concept for multiple robots that would team up to ferry to Earth samples collected from the Mars surface by NASA's Mars Perseverance rover.

NASA and ESA (European Space Agency) are developing concepts for the Mars Sample Return program designed to retrieve the samples of Martian rocks and soil being collected and stored in sealed tubes by Perseverance. In the future, the samples would be returned to Earth for detailed laboratory analysis.

The current concept envisions delivering a Mars lander near Jezero Crater, where Perseverance (far left) is caching, or collecting, samples. A NASA-provided Sample Retrieval Lander (far right) would carry a NASA rocket (the Mars Ascent Vehicle), and a second lander, pictured in the background, would carry ESA’s Sample Fetch Rover (center), which is a little smaller than a golf cart. The fetch rover would gather the cached samples left on the surface by Perseverance and transport them to the Sample Retrieval Lander, where they would then be transferred onto the Mars Ascent Vehicle. Perseverance could also deliver additional samples directly to the lander. The Mars Ascent Vehicle would launch a container with the samples inside into orbit. Waiting in Mars orbit would be an ESA-provided Earth Return Obiter, which would rendezvous with and capture the orbiting sample container using a NASA-provided Capture, Containment, and Return System. This system would capture and orient the container, then prepare it for return to Earth inside the Earth Entry System.

For more information, visit: mars.nasa.gov/msr.

Credit

NASA/ESA/JPL-Caltech

Mars Sample return mission logo.png
Mars Sample return mission logo

PIA25338 Three models of Mars helicopter.jpg
This illustration depicts three different of models of NASA’s solar-powered Mars helicopter.

In the upper right is the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter, currently operating at Jezero Crater.

Depicted in the foreground is one of two Sample Recovery Helicopters slated to fly to Mars as part of the Mars Sample Return Campaign. NASA is developing the Sample Recovery Helicopters to serve as backups to the agency’s Perseverance rover in transporting sample tubes to the Sample Return Lander.

In the upper center of image is the Mars Science Helicopter concept. A proposed follow-on to Ingenuity, the six-rotor Mars Science Helicopter could be used during future Mars missions to serve as an aerial scout and carry between 4.5 and 11 pounds (2 to 5 kilograms) of payload, including science instruments, to study terrain that rovers can’t reach.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

This illustration shows NASA's Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV) in powered flight after release from vector.png
This illustration shows NASA's Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV) in powered flight after release from vector. The MAV will carry tubes containing Martian rock and soil samples into orbit around Mars, where ESA’s Earth Return Orbiter spacecraft will enclose them in a highly secure containment capsule and deliver them to Earth.

Right now, some 182 million miles separate the red clay of Alabama from the dusty red planet Mars. But groundbreaking flight hardware developed at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, will soon close that distance.

The new hardware is an integral component of the Mars Sample Return campaign, a historic endeavor that will, for the first time, retrieve and deliver samples of that faraway alien terrain for intensive study in laboratories on Earth. A strategic partnership of NASA and ESA (European Space Agency), Mars Sample Return also will bring us closer to human exploration missions to the Red Planet.

Angie Jackman – who has spent more than 35 years leading some of the agency’s most advanced propulsion and engineering projects, state-of-the-art launch vehicle development programs, and complex space science missions – is the Mars Ascent Vehicle project manager.

Set to be the first rocket ever to launch from the surface of another planet, the Mars Ascent Vehicle will play a key role in the Mars Sample Return mission, launching into orbit around the Red Planet the samples gathered by the Perseverance rover from the ancient crater floor it’s now exploring. They’ll be transferred there to ESA’s Earth Return Orbiter.

Jackman’s team includes structural, thermal, mechanical, systems, and propulsion engineers, as well as analysts and technologists – a diverse team of NASA veterans alongside innovative newcomers – all of them deeply familiar with the vital intersection between flight hardware and scientific progress.

“Ask any engineer on the team, and they’ll tell you the science fascinates them,” Jackman said. “Engineers ask ‘How?’ Scientists ask ‘Why?’ Ultimately, that deeper imperative drives us all – the pride in helping to advance our collective knowledge, to increase our ability to safely navigate our world, and to better understand our place in the cosmos.”

The Marshall team is partnering with Lockheed Martin Space of Littleton, Colorado, which is building the integrated Mars Ascent Vehicle system and designing and developing the rocket’s ground support equipment, and Northrop Grumman Systems Corporation of Elkton, Maryland, which leads development of the ascent vehicle’s propulsion system.

“Together we are working to transform the Mars Ascent Vehicle from a drawing-board concept to an executable project,” Jackman said. “We went through exhaustive design iterations to reduce vehicle mass, ensure automated launch capability, and accurately achieve the orbit necessary to rendezvous with the Earth Return Orbiter and transfer samples for flight back to Earth.”

Combining launch vehicle reliability with the lightweight mass and storage requirements of a complex science payload taps strengths NASA has exhibited across numerous past science and exploration missions. Engineers and mission managers at Marshall have solved complex, technical spaceflight challenges for more than 70 years, from the groundbreaking Apollo Moon missions and the space shuttle program to NASA’s Space Launch System, the powerful new rocket set to launch missions that will bring the first woman and first person of color to the Moon.

Like most career aerospace managers, Jackman gleans best practices from decades of NASA precedents and lessons learned, but always challenges her team to push against conventional wisdom, to seek fresh alternatives that transcend traditional thinking.

“In this competitive, cost-conscious era, we have to work smarter, faster, and more efficiently,” she said. “Anybody can build a big, sturdy bridge, but it takes a disciplined engineering team to build one on schedule and precisely strong enough to do the job. This project taps every aspect of Marshall’s expertise as a NASA leader in propulsion, spaceflight systems, and science. I am so proud of our team. We got this.”

NASA’s Mars Sample Return mission will revolutionize our understanding of Mars by returning samples for study using the most sophisticated instruments around the world. These samples, collected by Perseverance during its exploration of an ancient river delta, are thought to be the best opportunity to reveal the early evolution of Mars, including the potential for life. The mission will fulfill a solar system exploration goal as identified by the National Academy of Sciences.

Learn more about the Mars Sample Return mission here:

https://mars.nasa.gov/msr