NASA Mars sample collection mission: Things have been steadily moving forward for the Mars sample collection mission of NASA and European Space Agency (ESA). After final month’s independent assessment approval for preparedness, the two agencies have began moving to the subsequent phase of the mission. The Mars Sample Return (MSR) work has been authorized by NASA for advancement to Phase A, which would entail preparation for bringing back the sample from the Red Planet.
What does Phase A entail?
In this phase, vital technologies for the programme would be matured and vital design and style choices would be taken, apart from the assessment of market partnerships.
Progress on the Mars mission so far
The Mars sample collection programme is a element of a wider, decade-extended Mars mission in which NASA and ESA aim to study the Red Planet, like its soil and digging inside, to trace any indicators of life that might have existed on the planet. This, the agencies think, would clue them into understanding improved the origins of life on Earth itself. For this study, rock samples would be retrieved from our neighbouring planet and brought back to Earth.
The mission began in July this year when NASA launched the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover into space. The rover is scheduled to land on MArs in February subsequent year, exactly where it would be hunting to obtain indicators of microbial life that may have when existed on the Red Planet. Perseverance, a auto-sized rover, is also equipped with a robotic arm that has a coring drill at its finish. With the assistance of this drill, it can dig into the surface, immediately after which it can gather rock and regolith samples from Mars and seal them in sampling tubes. After that, it can either retailer these samples internally or leave them designated spots on the surface of Mars.
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Next measures immediately after sample collection
While the rover operates on gathering samples and stowing them away, NASA and ESA would be giving elements for the Sample Retrieval Lander and Earth Return Orbiter missions. The agencies are hoping to launch these two missions in the second half of the decade.
The Sample Retrieval Lander would consist of a rover to fetch the sample and an ascent car. The rover would fetch the samples stowed by Perseverance on the surface of Mars and take them to the lande, although Perseverance would also have the capability to provide collection tubes to the lander if necessary. Once the collection tubes would have been delivered to the lander, its robotic arm would embed them on the ascent car. The technique would then take off from the Martian surface when the samples have been sealed.
While orbiting Mars, the technique would meet the Earth Return Orbiter exactly where the latter would take the sealed container holding the samples, putting them in a containment capsule to bring back to Earth in the early years of the subsequent decade.
NASA and ESA are bringing back the samples so that scientists from across the globe can study them working with sophisticated gear that can not be taken to outer space, at least as of now. Moreover, the future generations would also be capable to study these samples with technologies that are not even readily available but.
This mission is comparable to what Apollo had completed decades ago when it brought back samples from the Moon, so that scientists could study them and theorise about the Red Planet.