NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover will store rock and soil samples in sealed tubes on the planet’s surface for future missions to pick up, as seen in this illustration. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech
The board will assist with analysis of current plans and goals for one of the most difficult missions mankind has ever undertaken.
NASA has established one March Sample Return Program Independent Review Board to proactively assist with analysis of current plans and goals for one of the most difficult missions mankind has ever undertaken: returning samples from another planet to study on Earth.
When the Perseverance rover launched to Mars on July 30, it carried with it a nasty sampling system with drill bits, a core arm and sample tubes that are the cleanest hardware ever sent into space. Perseverance will collect samples from various spots on Mars before returning to Earth so scientists can determine if ancient microbial life ever existed on the Red Planet. The independent assessment board will assist NASA in reviewing the technical concept developed during preliminary formulation to date for robustness and the ability to meet the mission’s essential requirements. It will ensure that the agency adopts lessons learned from experience with previous major, strategic scientific missions.
“Mars Sample Return is a top priority for the scientific community, based on the Decade survey and also of strategic importance to our Moon to Mars reconnaissance program,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA’s Associate Director for Science at the Bureau’s headquarters in Washington. “It is a very complex international mission that requires focus to achieve technical, programmatic and mission success, and we want to have all the expertise we have available at this early stage to maximize mission success.”
NASA has successfully used independent assessments for strategic missions at an early stage in the past to set these important scientific missions on the path to success. As a recent example, the 2017 independent review for the Roman Space Telescope (earlier) WFIRST) helped the team a successful scope and cost trades for fixing.
This first leg in the round trip from Earth to Mars and back would take place in the course of several missions in collaboration with ESA (European Space Agency) as industrial partners. The architecture for the mission in its earliest formulation includes Perseverance taking samples and leaving them on the surface of Mars for a ‘pick up’ rover, which delivers them to a standing car that would take them to orbit, while an orbiter launched on another mission would attend with the samples and take them into a very safe contained capsule for returning land to Earth as soon as 2031.
The returned samples could potentially provide astrobiological evidence needed to determine if life ever existed on Mars. The mission itself also adds technologies for human exploration of the Red Planet, including the first launch of the surface of another planet. Strict protocols for forward and backward harmful contamination are developed for returning the samples.
“NASA is setting up these independent boards to help the agency learn from past experiences and detect subtle problems in space systems that may not have received enough attention yet,” said David Thompson, retired president of Orbital ATK, who chairman will be for the new board. “This review will give us the opportunity to focus on overall mission success and consider potential improvements that can be made early in the program to ensure the outcome.”
Experts from various fields, including planetary protection, and NASA’s partner in the mission, ESA, will be consulted as the review process progresses. The board is expected to meet about eight weeks in early August and submit a final report in the weeks following the evaluation.
