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<\/p>\nSince Mariner 9 entered orbit around Mars on November 14, 1971, NASA has been continuously studying the Red Planet. The Viking landers reached the surface of Mars five years later and began sampling the soil. Since then, numerous landers and rovers with instruments from institutions across Earth have studied and traveled the red terrain in search of answers to many of our questions. <\/p>\n
But all of the sample analysis has had to rely on the robotic laboratories and the data streams beamed back to Earth. Now, NASA and ESA (European Space Agency) are seeking to change that with the Mars Sample Return mission \u2014 for which a rocket launched from Earth and landed on Mars will be needed to bring Martian samples up to a waiting Earth Return Orbiter.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The complex mission \u2014 which will carry a fully-fueled, 3 meter long rocket \u2014 will require the recently-landed Perseverance rover to collect and bottle Martian surface samples for later collection by a Sample Fetch Rover that will be launched and landed with the Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV).<\/p>\n
The lander that will bring the fetch rover and MAV to Jezero Crater will also have to contain systems for installing the samples brought back by the rover into the Sample Return Capsule inside the rocket\u2019s payload fairing and launching the rocket from the surface into Martian orbit.<\/p>\n
On December 17, 2020, a full two months before Perseverance safely landed, NASA, in partnership with ESA, announced that it would move forward with this long awaited mission.<\/p>\n
On the heels of the successful landing, NASA formally awarded the MAV contract to Northrop Grumman.<\/p>\n
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A 2019 graphic depiction the proposed mission architecture for Mars Sample Return. (Credit: ESA)<\/p>\n
Other critical parts of the mission, the Earth Return Orbiter and Sample Fetch Rover, will be provided by ESA, along with the lander\u2019s robotic arm. In addition to the MAV, NASA is providing the Sample Retrieval Lander and the Capture and Containment and Return System payload on the Earth Return Orbiter.<\/p>\n
Astronomy (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});<\/p>\n To discuss the initial concepts for the MAV, NASASpaceflight spoke with Northrop Grumman about the project and its current state of development and criteria.<\/p>\n \u201cThis won\u2019t be our first rodeo, if you will, our first opportunity to provide propulsion systems that have flown within the Martian atmosphere,\u201d noted Mike Lara, Space Programs Strategy and Business Development Lead, Northrop Grumman. \u201cWe supported the landing of the original Pathfinder\/Sojourner rover. And then after that both the Spirit and Opportunity rovers were landing with the airbag-type arrangement that used our retrorockets and our gas generators to inflate the airbags as well as some small rockets to take out any sway in the parachute as it was coming down through the Mars atmosphere.\u201d<\/p>\n David McGrath, Senior Northrop Grumman Fellow, added: \u201cNASA started studying the mission in the late 1980s at a very low level, and then we got under contract in the mid 1990s. And we\u2019ve been on contract off and on as the funding has ebbed and flowed. And what\u2019s really special is to now see it go into full development and qualification and get ready to fly.\u201d<\/p>\n McGrath noted the company\u2019s long history with \u201clong-term\u201d missions that carried propellant for months or years before reaching their destinations \u2014 including the Magellan spacecraft to Venus which was in space for nearly 460 days before firing its rocket motor.<\/p>\n \u201cThis mission, because of the trajectory that we\u2019re going to Mars on, will be about three years going outbound from Earth to Mars. It\u2019s a different kind of trajectory. And then once we\u2019re on the surface, we\u2019re going to be there about a [Martian] year before the samples [\u2026] are collected, put into the rocket, and then launched,\u201d said McGrath.<\/p>\n