Low cost Mars Sample Return.

SpaceNut · 2023-11-23 17:27:34

I think that is due to needing more money for the SLS Artemis coming launches that are requiring a huge amount to move forward with this big dumb rocket.

The other is Lockheed being the lead for the return rocket is another area of rising expenses.

Mars_B4_Moon · 2023-12-04 08:46:47

China wants to retrieve a sample of Mars by 2028
https://phys.org/news/2023-11-china-sample-mars.html

This mission will be the third in the China National Space Administration's (CNSA) Tianwen program (Tianwen-3) and will consist of a pair of launches in 2028 that will return samples to Earth in July 2031. According to a new study recently published in the journal Chinese Science Bulletin, Chinese scientists announced that they have developed a new numerical model to simulate the atmospheric environment of Mars. Known as the Global Open Planetary atmospheric model for Mars (aka. GoPlanet-Mars, or GoMars), this model offers research support in preparation for the Tianwen-3 mission.

Mars_B4_Moon · 2023-12-09 10:33:07

a popular article has gone been shared a lot
from another discussion

Robert Zubrin
'Rethink the Mars Program'
https://spacenews.com/rethink-the-mars-program/
"It’s time to consider alternatives to sample return"
NASA’s robotic Mars exploration program is in crisis. A recent review of the plan of its flagship Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission pegged its cost at $10 billion, a price tag that threatens to preclude funding any other exploration missions to the Red Planet for the next decade and a half.

NASA last flew a life detection experiment to Mars in 1976.

Mars_B4_Moon · 2023-12-26 17:10:02

The Mars Sample Return Mission Is at a Dangerous Crossroads

https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti … rossroads/

French Rocket still expensive

British will provide an additional £10.7 million to replace Russian-made instrument on Rosalind Franklin rover, so that it can launch in 2028.

https://www.aber.ac.uk/en/news/archive/ … 25-en.html

July 2023 Mars Ascent Vehicle Continues Progress

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-mars … ple-return

Last edited by Mars_B4_Moon (2023-12-26 17:14:58)

Mars_B4_Moon · 2024-02-23 12:35:13

Could have been done in NASA Mars Viking times? MSR development hell for 50 years, still ongoing.

the Russian part of the European lander gone after sanctions with the Russia invasion of Ukraine, the mission continues Mars Sample Return (MSR), a joint campaign being planned by NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA)

NASA has put the program on pause as it re-evaluates

MSR at serious risk
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4741/1
announcement was shocking yet not entirely unexpected.

Jeff Foust is the editor and publisher of The Space Review, and a senior staff writer with SpaceNews. He also operates the Spacetoday.net web site.
Some privately worry the damage done to the MSR program might be irreparable. The layoffs came after JPL had worked to address other issues at the lab that surfaced when software testing problems delayed the Psyche mission by more than a year.

PL worked to address those problems (to the satisfaction of Young and his review board), but that it meant deferring work on the VERITAS Venus orbiter mission by three years to allow JPL to devote its resources on priorities like Europa Clipper, the NISAR Earth science mission—and MSR. (Despite the overall funding uncertainty, Leshin said in January, both NISAR and Europa Clipper are on schedule for launches this spring and October, respectively.)

But solving those problems will be no easier after the layoffs. As one industry source not at JPL said on background, “If JPL had trouble doing all their missions before, how will they manage now with 500 fewer employees?”

The hope in the planetary science community, which has considered returning samples from Mars its top priority among large missions, is that NASA in general, and JPL specifically, will be able to chart a path through this budget, workforce, and mission architecture challenge, finding a more affordable approach that, likely, will take longer to carry out. Those scientists have been waiting for decades for getting samples back from Mars; they may need a little more patience.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory announced it would lay off 530 employees, or about 8% of its total workforce, along with 40 contractors.

Mars_B4_Moon · 2024-02-23 12:37:47

Can SpaceX’s Starship save Mars Sample Return?

https://www.planetary.org/articles/can- … ple-return

Mars_B4_Moon · 2024-03-04 18:24:46

Grabbing Samples from the Surface of Mars

https://www.universetoday.com/166000/gr … e-of-mars/

SpaceNut · 2024-03-04 20:46:07

First problem is that Perseverance has been getting the samples in a means to get them ready but in that process is leaving them across the surface as it does so.
This creates the second issue of it takes time remotely to gather them to a central site and be able to transfer them in quantity to begin the process.
All of that time the ship on mars surface is aging due to mars temperature that is cycling over great extremes.
Third with only the single return site and just one gathering unit we are going to need lots of time as there is no quick way to get them other than to follow the path which got them ready.

We did learn that a helicopter could do the gathering but that is a next generation machine that would only be projected to last just like the last only larger.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA-ESA_ … ple_Return

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/mars- … return-msr

What is the Mars Sample Return Program?

Why its got issues Will NASA be able to return Mars samples to Earth? New audit raises doubts

Design, cost and scheduling are all significant obstacles, an audit report of NASA's Mars Sample Return (MSR) Program by the agency's Office of Inspector General (OIG) finds.

The MAV is required to get from the surface with the samples to an earth return vehicle.
https://mars.nasa.gov/msr/spacecraft/ma … t-vehicle/

Tech Specs
Height 10 feet (3 meters) tall
Mass ~992 pounds (450 kilograms)
Weight ~992 pounds on Earth (~450 kilograms)
~372 pounds on Mars (~169 kilograms)
Diameter 1.6 feet (0.5 meters) wide
Speed 2.5 miles per second (about 4 kilometers per second), the MAV would reach its desired orbit about 10 minutes after launch
Fuel Two-stage, solid propellant rocket

The dream was to have a partner build the rover to go get the samples but with Inguitity sucsess plans could evolve.
https://mars.nasa.gov/msr/spacecraft/sa … licopters/

Tech Specs
Size About the size of Ingenuity Mars Helicopter, which has a rotor span of ~4 feet (~1.2 meters)
Mass ~2.3 kilograms
Weight ~5 pounds on Earth
~1.9 pounds on Mars
Height ~20.47 inches (~52 centimeters)
Power Solar panels that charge internal lithium-ion batteries
Groundspeed ~11 mph (~5 meters per second)
Flight Range ~2,300 feet (700 meters)
Flight Altitude ~66 feet (20 meters)
Flight Environment Mars' thin atmosphere, less than 1% the density of Earth's atmosphere
Mobility Four wheels about 0.8 inches (2 centimeters) wide, with an outer diameter of about 3.94 inches (10 centimeters)

Of course this was all to happen so that man could go to mars and back safely.

SpaceNut · 2024-03-09 15:02:09

Opinion: Mars rocks are a science prize the U.S. can't afford to lose

https://www.nasa.gov/moontomarsarchitecture/

The first phase of Mars Sample Return has already begun. In February 2021, the rover Perseverance landed on Mars tasked with collecting air, rock cores and soil that would ultimately be returned to Earth. Equipped with a sophisticated sampling system, Perseverance has already filled 23 of its collection tubes and has 15 more.
The envisioned next phase is sending a Sample Retrieval Lander to rendezvous with Perseverance, transfering the samples and then launching them into space, to be picked up by an Earth Return Orbiter furnished by ESA.
Yet how, when, or even if those next phases will happen is far from certain.
Faced with rising costs, NASA commissioned an independent review of the entire program in 2023. The review didn't pull punches, finding that the likely cost of the project had ballooned, its organizational structure wasn’t working, and that NASA hadn’t effectively communicated to the science community or the public why the massive effort was worthwhile in the first place. Despite that, the review emphasized that the scientific and geopolitical value of Mars Sample Return couldn’t be overstated, and that the project could be made affordable.
Still, the Senate threatened to reduce the project’s budget substantially and even cancel it outright, which starkly contrasted with the House’s proposal to support the program fully. Congress now proposes to fund it at some level, but this uncertainty has driven NASA to “ramp back” its Mars Sample Return-related activities. As a result, Pasadena’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, NASA’s lead center for the project, laid off more than 600 staff members last month — highly skilled expertise that NASA can no longer access.
Now Congress has a choice: It can turn its back on Mars Sample Return or commit to funding the boldest robotic planetary science effort humanity has yet undertaken.
The sample project must be put on a financially affordable path as part of NASA’s overall program of U.S. planetary exploration — returning samples from Mars cannot happen at the expense of every other planetary science enterprise at the agency. A team began developing a cost-effective path forward last year, in response to the independent review’s criticisms. Its proposals are expected later in March.

Mars_B4_Moon · 2024-04-06 06:15:50

Space Budget Experts Warn FY2025 May Be Even Worse for NASA
https://spacepolicyonline.com/news/spac … -for-nasa/

The Planetary Society’s Casey Dreier said he’s reviewed 60 years of NASA budgets and never seen that before. Toal Eisen exclaimed Congress “doesn’t get to enact ‘TBD’.”
Dreier stressed that NASA’s science program bore the brunt of the cuts and the planetary science division, which includes MSR, in particular.

NASA’s Mars rover finds rock from possible ancient beach
https://cosmosmagazine.com/space/explor … ck-sample/

Elon Musk hints at a crewed mission to Mars in 2029
https://www.npr.org/2022/03/17/10871678 … -mars-2029

A lunar pandemic
https://aeon.co/essays/what-can-we-lear … -never-was
In the 1960s, NASA went to huge expense to contain possible pathogens from the Moon. What can we learn from the attempt?

NASA reassured the public that its ‘unparalleled’ and ‘exhaustive’ preparations had left nothing to chance. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, every part of its quarantine procedure suffered disastrous breaches that would surely have exposed Earth to lunar microbes – had they existed. The microscopic universe, it turned out, was simply impossible to control.

To ensure that the astronauts didn’t harbour a slow-moving illness, the quarantine would have to be at least three weeks long. And to verify that lunar microbes couldn’t contaminate the biosphere, some of the priceless rocks gathered by the astronauts would need to be ground to dust and exposed to plants, animals and tissue samples.

The conference marked the turning of the tide in American preparations for back contamination from space. It was now clear that NASA would need to design a facility that could not only protect Moon rocks from terrestrial contamination but also protect Earth from contamination by those rocks – all while conducting complex experiments using the rocks and maintaining a strict quarantine of everything else that had returned from the Moon, astronauts included. Nothing like the facility they would need had ever been imagined, let alone built.

After more than a year of bureaucratic squabbling, NASA planners settled on a design for an 86,000 sq ft laboratory. It would cost nearly $75 million to build, $60 million to equip, and more than $13 million annually to operate (all in 2020 US dollars). It would consist of three parts, each with a different function: a quarantine facility to isolate returned astronauts and spacecraft behind a biological barrier; a sample operations area to run experiments on Moon rocks and Earthly biota behind another barrier; and an administrative area.

Last edited by Mars_B4_Moon (2024-04-06 12:27:00)

Mars_B4_Moon · 2024-04-21 03:31:51

Skip the first few mins of the video nothing happens

For the first 7 mins of the vid they seem to just play some Latin yacht Salsa soft smooth rock Caribbean type guitar music then NASA hides bad news behind telephone tele-conference, Bill Nelson the 14th NASA administrator and a former U.S. senator answers question.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PA1qhzkSlA

they say 2040 is when they will try bring the samples back?

a web and tv quote which circulates on social media then from a site knowyourmeme

"He's dead, Jim"/"It's dead, Jim"
Part of a series on Star Trek.

dead?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MH7KYmGnj40

'a popular catch phrase from the original Star Trek television series (infused into modern culture by its countless reruns) that is used as a pronouncement that something is no longer alive or working'

Nelson Defends Tough Choices
https://spacepolicyonline.com/news/nels … t-request/

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson fielded questions from House Appropriations committee members

EDIT the words 'Bu d g et' and 'Re qu est' together may be triggering a 404 error and filter

also Musk and Space-X

'Starship has the potential to return serious tonnage from Mars within ~5 years'
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1779947903093776406

Last edited by Mars_B4_Moon (2024-04-21 04:01:26)

SpaceNut · 2024-04-21 09:03:45

Nasa expenditures for an end-to-end system is failing due to costs. In the end it had to many parts and partners to be able to make it happen.

A study from July 2020 estimated the total cost of MSR to be between $2.5 and $3 billion.

NASA had hoped that Mars Sample Return would cost $5 billion to $7 billion, and that the rocks would arrive on Earth in 2033. But last fall, a panel that reviewed the mission concluded that the cost was likely to be much higher, from $8 to $11 billion.

A new date of 2040 is even more costly.

Based on topic start of 2012 its got to be even older than this.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA-ESA_ … ple_Return
Seems even 2001 was the beginning.

Nasa is also looking at not a rover retrieval of the ready samples means a possible Sample Recovery Helicopters

This still needs a MAV and lander pltform for the helicopter to make use of.

We are talking about how much money has already gone under the bridge.
FY 2021 President’s B u d g e t Request

SpaceNut · 2024-04-21 12:06:25

It is here that Mars_B4_Moon has the bragging of China which could strive to do what we can not. With a response that follows by Oldfart1939 more convinced that Elon could do it with Flacon 9 Heavy Red Dragon.

We even were close to designing something along the same lines to go to mars but it's about wasting money. with the current clasic Nasa RFP and contracts.

Oldfart1939 · 2024-04-21 14:17:17

I made my comments after hearing Jim Bell describe in detail what has to happen for success; I don't think NASA wants to gamble $$11 Billion on a less than 50% overall chance of success. I personally wouldn't take that chance with the diminishing budget of the space agency; given the odds stated for success, the economics argue against the funding. There are too many high risk operations that need to succeed 100% in order for a sample return.

SpaceNut · 2024-04-21 15:16:35

One of the issues is the time to retrieve all of the samples that are lying on the surface. That makes robotically done a long period as due to the telerobotic time delay that are required for programming any movement.

That means fuel boiloff since oxygen required for most will need active cooling.

Solids due change this in the design but duration will it affect it during the waiting period on the cold mars surface waiting.

We know that we require navigation, heat shield but is a sky crane the means to the end or do we really need a capsule or landing platform.

So that is a many stepped process but once we put numbers to what is required and not its cost from the bloated cost plus companies.

SpaceNut · 2024-04-21 19:09:16

Seems others are thinking bigger for the ship to rescue Nasa's mission.

Experts Suggest Using SpaceX's Starship to Rescue Stranded Samples on Surface of Mars

Needless to say, a rocket that could both land and lift off from the Martian surface could help streamline the endeavor significantly.
While nobody really knows if Starship could ever be used to collect samples from the Red Planet — SpaceX has yet to even get it into space and back in one piece — it's a glimmer of hope for an expensive mission with a spectacular potential scientific payoff.
"There are aspects of solar system evolution that can only be done through the return of samples [from Mars],” Brown University planetary scientist Jack Mustard told SA. "Having datable samples from another planetary body to address that question would be unbelievable."

RGClark · 2024-04-23 11:36:40

NASA is now opening up the Mars Sample Return mission to the commercial space approach. The usual NASA government financed approach is estimated to cost ~$10 Billion. But following the commercial space approach it probably could be done at literally 1/100th that at ~$100 million including launch cost.

I had estimated it as less than ~$200 million using the Falcon Heavy as launcher:

Low cost commercial Mars Sample Return. 
http://exoscientist.blogspot.com/2023/0 … eturn.html

This could get ~750 kg back from Mars with the Falcon Heavy as the launcher. However, it probably could in fact be launched on the Falcon 9. The Falcon 9 can launch about a quarter of the mass of the Falcon Heavy to Mars, for all the in-space stages, so estimate the sample size returned from Mars of ca. 180kg.

At a $40 launch cost of the reused F9, then all together with all the in-space stages, the mission cost probably could be less than than ~$100 million. Such a low mission cost probably could be paid for by advertising alone.

But to encourage participants to take up the task of such a fully privately financed mission, NASA could offer a prize of say $200 to $500 million to whoever could accomplish it, with some smaller incentive prizes to those who accomplish some key required steps.

Bob Clark

SpaceNut · 2024-04-24 20:38:08

NASA to overhaul mission returning samples from Mars—here's why it must and will go ahead it is seeking new ways to complete the return to Earth of rock cores drilled by the Perseverance Rover in the Jezero Crater on Mars.

One key conclusion of the NASA review is that MSR was established with unrealistic budget and schedules. Now it expects a cost of US$8–11 billion (£6.5–8.9 billion), having originally estimated $5.3 billion. That's not including the investment that the European Space Agency (ESA) is making, which is probably of the order of €2 billion (£1.7 billion).
There are also concerns that the timeline for return of the drill cores to Earth may slip in to the 2040s, and therefore start holding up the even more ambitious vision for human missions to Mars.
current mission profile is to:
Perseverance is already doing the first key stage of this mission—drilling in Jezero Crater. This is stage one of four. The next two stages will be to gather at least some of the drilled samples and launch them on a Mars ascent vehicle into orbit for capture by ESA's Return Orbiter. That capture in Mars orbit of a football-sized return capsule is one of the key technical challenges of MSR. ESA is taking a major part in this and leads the return orbiter development.

Designing to get the samples that are each of the rock cores inside the 15cm tubes are about 6cm long seems to be more of a job for pick up.
The issue is that the launch and then a follow up to transfer to another to go home means much more mass is required.

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#26 2023-11-23 17:27:34

Re: Low cost Mars Sample Return.

#27 2023-12-04 08:46:47

Re: Low cost Mars Sample Return.

#28 2023-12-09 10:33:07

Re: Low cost Mars Sample Return.

#29 2023-12-26 17:10:02

Re: Low cost Mars Sample Return.

#30 2024-02-23 12:35:13

Re: Low cost Mars Sample Return.

#31 2024-02-23 12:37:47

Re: Low cost Mars Sample Return.

#32 2024-03-04 18:24:46

Re: Low cost Mars Sample Return.

#33 2024-03-04 20:46:07

Re: Low cost Mars Sample Return.

#34 2024-03-09 15:02:09

Re: Low cost Mars Sample Return.

#35 2024-04-06 06:15:50

Re: Low cost Mars Sample Return.

#36 2024-04-21 03:31:51

Re: Low cost Mars Sample Return.

#37 2024-04-21 09:03:45

Re: Low cost Mars Sample Return.

#38 2024-04-21 12:06:25

Re: Low cost Mars Sample Return.

#39 2024-04-21 14:17:17

Re: Low cost Mars Sample Return.

#40 2024-04-21 15:16:35

Re: Low cost Mars Sample Return.

#41 2024-04-21 19:09:16

Re: Low cost Mars Sample Return.

#42 2024-04-23 11:36:40

Re: Low cost Mars Sample Return.

#43 2024-04-24 20:38:08

Re: Low cost Mars Sample Return.

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