NASA begins preparations to retrieve rock samples from Mars; Take a loot at the plan

NASA has officially begun the campaign to bring back the Mars samples that its Perseverance rover has collected, the agency informed. This comes over one month after the rover scooped a rock sample by drilling 2 inches into the red planet on September 1. As per NASA, that historic event marked the first time a spacecraft packed up a rock sample from another planet that could be returned to Earth by a future spacecraft.

How will the sample be transported?

The sample retrieving campaign commenced by NASA is one of the most ambitious endeavours in spaceflight history, involving multiple spacecraft, multiple launches, and dozens of government agencies. The rover will continue collecting samples for the next few years till the rockets and capsules designed to retrieve the samples reach Mars. 

Although the mission is in the concept design and technology development phase, it would require an autonomously launching rocket to ferry the precious extraterrestrial cargo from the surface of Mars. As per NASA, the rocket is being developed in collaboration with the European Space Agency (ESA) and several other bodies are also indulged for contribution

The mission would also include an ESA sample fetch rover that would launch from Earth later this decade to pick up the rock samples. The rover would be responsible for the transfer of samples to a lander that is being developed at JPL. A robotic arm on the lander would pack the samples into the tip of a rocket that is being designed by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama’s Huntsville.

Furthermore, once the rocket is loaded with the samples, it will deliver the sample capsule to an orbiter installed on Mars’ orbit which will then be prepared for delivery to the Earth. However, the engineers here must ensure that the rocket’s trajectory aligns with that of a spacecraft orbiting Mars so the sample capsule could be transferred to the orbiter. 

Challenges of the mission

Although the space agencies have prepared their plan, shipping the rock samples to millions of miles won’t be easy. The agency revealed that one of the primary tasks for NASA engineers is figuring out how to seal and sterilize the sample container without obliterating important chemical signatures in the rock cores inside. 

The Goddard systems engineer Brendan Feehan said, “Among our biggest technical challenges right now is that inches away from metal that’s melting at about 538 degrees Celsius, we have to keep these extraordinary Mars samples below the hottest temperature they might have experienced on Mars, which is about 30 degrees Celsius.

Image: NASA