Big Cost Increases For The Mars Sample Return Mission
The idea of collecting, transferring, launching, and delivering Mars samples to Earth is an extremely ambitious mission with a lot of moving parts. This correlates to the big price tag of a few billion dollars. Unfortunately for NASA, new reports suggest that what was originally expected to cost between $3 and $4 billion, could end up being closer to $9 billion, if not higher.
The mission I’m referring to is the Mars Sample Return (MSR) program. This involves the perseverance rover, a massive lander, small rocket system, and reentry into Earth’s atmosphere. The mission timeline is around a decade long from start to finish. At this point the agency is committed but the significantly higher cost estimate is causing concerns.
Combine this with possible delays and NASA is trying to determine the best approach forward. Here I will go more in-depth into the cost increase, the mission plan, what to expect in the coming months, and more.
Increase of Billions
To be specific, the agency reported that a quote “highly speculative” cost estimate for the entire mission could be around $8 or $9 billion. An independent review a few years back estimated the cost of the mission at $3.8 billion to $4.4 billion.
In a statement, the agency said “NASA evaluates a wide range of funding scenarios every year for its portfolio of missions as part of its annual budget process. Missions in formulation, such as Mars Sample Return, have more variables to consider, providing for a greater range of scenarios to evaluate — all scenarios are highly speculative. One included a lifecycle cost range of $8–9 billion, which included launch, operation, and closeout cost estimates” they said.
In addition to this recent cost estimate, the agency had begun requesting more money for the program. In this case, after the space agency received $822 million in this year’s federal budget for Mars Sample Return, it asked for $949 million in the fiscal year 2024 budget. That budget proposal paused work on a heliophysics mission, citing the “high budgetary requirements” of other missions like MSR. To put that number in perspective, it’s even a decent bit higher than what was requested for the James Webb Space Telescope, a project that cost over $10 billion.
As far as what drove up these costs, there are a lot of possible answers. Zurbuchen, who left NASA after seven years leading its Science Mission Directorate at the end of 2022 commented that “there were “horrendous” technical mistakes made during the early planning phase at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The original concept involved sending everything on a single lander, including a small rover to “fetch” the samples from Perseverance. However, the depth of this analysis was insufficient and included large errors about the mass of the landing legs and other factors. For a time, the plan had to evolve to add a second lander, which increased the cost by more than $1 billion.
All this being said, the mission is very important to the agency and progress is already being made. By now Perseverance has collected nearly half of its samples on the Martian surface. In the influential decadal survey published last year, it was quoted saying, “Mars Sample Return is of fundamental strategic importance to NASA, US leadership in planetary science, and international cooperation and should be completed as rapidly as possible. However, its cost should not be allowed to undermine the long-term programmatic balance of the planetary portfolio” they said.
This has to do with the other main issue of NASA’s overall funding. The agency splits its funding into certain categories and often times if one project is running low on funds the most available or realistic option is taking from another. NASA’s planetary science budget for example, is about $3 billion a year, for the remainder of this decade. Within that budget are a bunch of projects and not just the Mars Sample Reutrn mission. The agency can only take so much away from other projects before they no longer have the funding they need.
In terms of possible solutions, people have suggested a few ideas. One NASA source said, “Why are we not putting out a call and having an industry competition for people like Lockheed Martin, SpaceX, Blue Origin, Astrobotic, Intuitive Machines, and whoever else? They’re already building landers. Why can’t we ask them what they could do? JPL hasn’t even asked. We should be using a commercial, milestone-based approach” they said. Other options include altering the mission itself and some fo the backup plans currently implemented.
Mars Sample Return
On this mission, NASA and ESA (European Space Agency) are planning ways to bring the first samples of Mars material back to Earth for detailed study. The Mars Perseverance rover is the first leg of this international, interplanetary relay team. Its job is to collect and cache samples on Mars.
Next, NASA’s Sample Retrieval Lander would touch down on Mars and remain in place to receive a diverse collection of scientifically curated samples of Martian rock already collected and cached by NASA’s Perseverance rover. The payload mass of the lander is double that of the Perseverance rover (1,241 pounds, or 563 kilograms). The lander’s hefty cargo would include a rocket, sample transfer arm, and two helicopters. Each landing leg would be roughly the size of a human adult, with the whole lander standing over 6 feet tall or around 2 meters.
You then have the Sample Recovery Helicopters which are modeled after the successful Ingenuity Mars Helicopter, carried to the Red Planet by NASA’s Perseverance rover. These specialized rotorcraft would be a secondary method of sample retrieval for the NASA/ESA Mars Sample Return Campaign. Currently, the Perseverance rover, which has already been collecting a diverse set of scientifically curated samples for potential safe return to Earth, is planned as the primary method of delivering samples to the Sample Retrieval Lander. The Sample Recovery Helicopters would expand on Ingenuity’s design, adding wheels and gripping capabilities to pick up cached sample tubes left on the surface by Perseverance and transport them to the Sample Retrieval Lander.
Inside the lander is the Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV) a lightweight rocket that would transport the sample return container, or Orbiting Sample (OS), into orbit as part of NASA and European Space Agency’s (ESA) Mars Sample Return Program. It would be the first rocket ever to launch off the surface of another planet, and would transport the sample tubes containing Martian rock and soil samples into orbit around Mars. The rocket and orbiting sample container would travel to Mars on board the Sample Retrieval Lander, and would remain on board until they’ve been loaded with samples and prepped for launch.
After launch, the Earth Return Orbiter (ERO), provided by ESA, would be the first interplanetary spacecraft to capture an object in orbit around another planet and make a full round trip to Mars and back. It would also be the biggest-ever spacecraft to orbit the Red Planet. The spacecraft would locate, intercept, and capture a volleyball-sized capsule launched from the surface of Mars. The entire campaign would be operated autonomously away from Earth at over 31 million miles (about 50 million kilometers) away. Once the orbiter has completed rendezvous, it would perform a maneuver to capture the Orbiting Sample container within the NASA-provided Capture, Containment, and Return System (CCRS) onboard the orbiter, housed on the upper deck of the ERO spacecraft. To do this, ERO would use high-performance cameras to detect the Orbiting Sample at over 620 miles (1,000 kilometers) distance. Once “locked on” would track it continuously using cameras and LiDARs throughout the rendezvous phase all the way up to capture by CCRS. CCRS will sterilize the outer surface of the Orbiting Sample container and contain it safely within the Earth Entry System (EES).
Having already spent three years to reach Mars and perform its support of surface operations by the lander, rendezvous and capture mission, the orbiter would jettison major elements of the CCRS hardware, while still in orbit around Mars to reduce mass before embarking on its two-year journey back to Earth.
About a week before arrival at Earth, and only after successfully completing a full system safety check-out, the spacecraft would be configured to perform the Earth return phase. When the orbiter is three days away from Earth, the EES would be released from the main spacecraft and fly a precision entry trajectory to a predetermined landing site. Shortly after separation, the orbiter itself would perform a series of maneuvers to enter orbit around the Sun, never to return to Earth.
Once safely on the ground, the Orbiting Sample container with the precious Martian samples would be transported to a specialized sample handling facility, where they would be prepared for investigation by top scientists and laboratories from around the world.
Conclusion
NASA is in the middle of the Mars Sample Return mission and future costs could be increasing significantly. This poses a challenge as they either have to take funding from other programs or request more money for an already expensive mission. We will have to wait and see how it progresses and the impact it has on the space industry.
