NASA announced Friday that it will award contracts to seven companies, including SpaceX and Blue Origin, to study how to transport rock samples from Mars more cheaply back to Earth.
The space agency put out a call to industry in April for ideas on how to return Mars rocks to Earth for less than $11 billion and before 2040, the cost and schedule for NASA’s existing plan to return samples from Mars ( MSR). A NASA spokesperson told Ars that the agency received 48 responses to the solicitation and selected seven companies to conduct more detailed studies.
Each company will receive up to $1.5 million for their 90-day studies. Five of the companies selected by NASA are among the agency’s list of major contractors, and their inclusion in the exploration contracts is no surprise. Two other winners are smaller businesses.
Returning samples from Mars is the highest priority for NASA’s Planetary Sciences Division. The Perseverance rover, currently on Mars, is collecting several dozen samples of rock dust, soil and Martian air in cigar-shaped titanium tubes for eventual return to Earth.
“Returning samples from Mars will be one of the most complex missions NASA has ever undertaken, and it is critical that we do it faster, with less risk and at a lower cost,” said Bill Nelson, administrator of the NASA. “I am excited to see the vision these companies, centers and partners present as we seek fresh, exciting and innovative ideas to unlock great cosmic secrets from the red planet.”
Who is involved?
Lockheed Martin, the only company to have built a spacecraft to successfully land on Mars, will conduct “rapid design studies of the Mars sample return mission,” according to NASA. Northrop Grumman also won a contract for its proposal: “High TRL (Technology Readiness Level) MAV (Mars Ascent Vehicle) Propulsion Deals and Concept Design for MSR Rapid Mission Design.”
These two companies were partners in the development of the solid propellant Mars Ascent Vehicle for NASA’s existing Mars Sample Return mission. The MAV is the rocket that will propel the capsule containing the rock samples from the surface of Mars back into space to begin the months-long journey back to Earth. Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman’s involvement in NASA’s Mars program, along with the scope of research proposed in Northrop’s proposal, suggests that they will propose applying existing capabilities to address the Mars sample return program.
Aerojet Rocketdyne, best known as a rocket propulsion supplier, will explore a highly efficient liquid-fueled Mars Ascent Vehicle using what it says are “very reliable and mature propulsion technologies to improve program affordability and schedule.”
SpaceX, a company with a long-term vision for Mars, also won funding from NASA for an exploration contract. Her research proposal was titled “Enabling Return of Mars Samples with Starship.” SpaceX is already designing the privately funded Starship rocket with missions to Mars, and Elon Musk, the company’s founder, predicts that Starship will land on Mars by the end of the decade.
Musk has been known to miss schedule predictions before with Starship, and landing on the red planet before the end of 2020 still seems unlikely. However, the giant rocket could allow delivery to Mars and eventually return tens of tons of cargo. A successful Starship test flight this week proved that SpaceX is making progress toward that goal. Still, there is a long way to go.
Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos’ space company, will also receive funding for a study called “Using Artemis to Return Samples from Mars.”
SpaceX and Blue Origin have multibillion-dollar contracts with NASA to develop Starship and the Blue Moon lander as spacecraft designed to carry astronauts to and from the lunar surface as part of the Artemis program.
Two other small businesses, Quantum Space and Whittinghill Aerospace, will also conduct research for NASA.
Quantum, which describes itself as a space infrastructure company, was founded in 2021 by entrepreneur Kam Ghaffarian, who also founded Intuitive Machines and Axiom Space. No details are known about the scope of his research, known as the “Mars Leg Quantum Anchor Sample Return Study.” Perhaps the “anchor leg” refers to the final stage of returning samples to Earth, like the anchor in a relay race.
California-based Whittinghill Aerospace has just a handful of employees. It will conduct a rapid design study of a single-stage vehicle for ascent to Mars, NASA said.
It was missing from the list of Boeing contract winners, which mandated the use of NASA’s super-expensive Space Launch System to perform the Mars Sample Return mission in a single launch. Boeing, of course, builds most of the SLS rocket. Most other sample return concepts require multiple runs.
Along with the seven industry contracts, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) will also conduct studies on how to complete the mission to return samples to Mars more affordably.
JPL is the lead center responsible for managing NASA’s existing Mars sample return concept in partnership with the European Space Agency. However, rising costs and delays led NASA officials to decide in April to take a different approach.
Nicola Fox, head of NASA’s science directorate, said in April that he hoped the “outside the box” concepts would allow the agency to return samples to Earth in the 2030s, rather than the 2040s or later. “It’s definitely a very ambitious goal,” she said. “We will have to look for some very innovative new design opportunities and certainly leave no stone unturned.”
NASA will use the results of these 10 studies to create a new approach to return samples from Mars later this year. Most likely, the architecture that NASA ultimately chooses will mix and match various elements from industry, NASA centers and the European Space Agency, which remains a committed partner in the Mars Sample Return with the Earth Return Orbiter.
