NASA administrator Bill Nelson and assistant administrator Nicky Fox will give an update on the mission that has been placed in limbo on Tuesday, January 7 at 1:00 pm EST.
Through the NASA website or the webcast shown below, you can watch the teleconference in real-time.
As stated in a media advisory, “The briefing will include NASA’s efforts to complete its goals of returning scientifically selected samples from Mars to Earth while lowering cost, risk, and mission complexity,” according to Jessica Taveau of NASA.
As the name implies, the goal of NASA’s Mars Sample Return mission is to bring fragments of Mars back to Earth so that researchers can conduct in-depth research on the Red Planet.
To achieve this, since its arrival on Mars in 2021, NASA’s Perseverance rover has already gathered and stored a variety of samples. “The agency’s Mars Sample Return Program has been a major long-term goal of international planetary exploration for more than two decades,” the statement read.
To better understand Mars’ geological past, its changing environment, and how to get ready for future human explorers, NASA’s Perseverance rover is gathering fascinating research samples. Additionally, the samples’ return will aid NASA’s hunt for evidence of ancient life.
Issues with the NASA-ESA Mars Sample Return
There have been issues with the NASA-ESA Mars Sample Return project for a while.
The deployment of the Perseverance rover in February 2021 marked the start of the actual mission. Getting intriguing samples of Martian rock is part of Perseverance’s continuous mission.
Those samples are now on the surface of Mars in canisters, waiting to be picked up by another expedition and sent back to Earth.
After an independent evaluation concluded in 2023 that the Mars Sample Return Program had “unrealistic budget and schedule expectations,” an “unwieldy structure,” and was “not arranged to be led effectively,” the mission’s viability was called into question.
It was later recommended by the House and Senate appropriations committees that NASA’s 2024 budget be reduced by US$454,080,000, primarily from the Mars Sample Return mission.
Additionally, NASA cut back on mission funding and fired many employees and contractors from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is in charge of the program.
This raised some concerns that the mission would be cancelled, leaving the Perseverance-filled canisters on the Martian surface for some time to come.
Nelson and Fox stated in April 2024 that the space agency was looking for a solution that would lower the mission cost and deliver the sample to Earth before 2040 and that the mission had not been cancelled.
The maximum projected cost of that Mars sample return plan was approximately $3 billion in 2020. By April 2024, the mission’s technical difficulties and complexity were more apparent, and its high-end cost was anticipated to be $11 billion.
More bad news was discovered by an evaluation conducted in September 2023: perseverance’s samples would probably not be returned to Earth by NASA until 2040, a full 20 years after the rover’s first launch to Mars, due to the plan’s complex construction.
For instance, China intends to send samples back to Earth in 2031 after launching its own sample return mission to Mars in 2028. Therefore, the competition to get samples from Mars is not exclusive to NASA. NASA has been working on updating its Mars sample return plan throughout 2024 to make it less complicated and expensive.
Some of the fresh ideas that might be incorporated into that strategy might be unveiled at Tuesday’s media briefing. The new Mars sample return plan will involve more than just NASA centres, Nelson told reporters at NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre last month.
“What’s coming out is by involving industry, and not NASA centres like [the Jet Propulsion Laboratory], combining with others, they’re coming out with much more practical (proposals), where they can speed up the time and considerably lower the cost,” Nelson said during the meeting on Dec. 18, according to Spaceflight Now.
A comprehensive report is expected by the end of 2024. NASA announced in October 2024 that a new committee will be assembled to evaluate the Mars Sample Return mission’s future. The results of this report will likely be presented during the broadcast.
“To organise a mission at this level of complexity, we employ decades of lessons on how to run a large mission, including incorporating the input we get from conducting independent reviews,” Fox stated in April 2024.
“Our next steps will position us to bring this transformational mission forward and deliver revolutionary science from Mars – providing critical new insights into the origins and evolution of Mars, our solar system, and life on Earth.”
Hopefully, the mission remains intact.