WASHINGTON – NASA has selected seven companies to research “out-of-the-box” concepts for the agency’s Mars Sample Return (MSR) program, which could deliver samples faster and cheaper than current plans.
NASA announced late June 7 that it had selected proposals from Aerojet Rocketdyne, Blue Origin, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Quantum Space, SpaceX and Whittinghill Aerospace for 90-day studies of alternative MSR concepts. Each prize is worth up to $1.5 million.
The agency published a request for proposals for those studies in mid-April after concluding that the current approach to returning samples would cost up to $11 billion and wouldn’t be completed until 2040. That review was in response to an independent review completed last year. September revealed that the MSR program was unlikely to meet existing cost and schedule targets.
“Mars Sample Return will be one of the most complex missions NASA has undertaken, and it is critical that we execute it faster, with less risk and at a lower cost,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a statement about the new mission. studies.
NASA has not released any details about the studies beyond the titles of the industry proposals. At least three of the proposals, from Aerojet, Northrop and Whittinghill, appear to target the Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV), the rocket that will launch the sample cache from the surface of Mars into orbit around the planet. The request for proposals for mission studies highlighted the MAV as an element of particular interest to NASA for studies.
“The Mars Ascent Vehicle is one of the major limiting factors in terms of complexity and cost,” said Sandra Connelly, NASA’s deputy associate administrator for science, at a meeting of the National Academies’ Space Studies Board on June 5, where MSR was discussed, among other things.
Not surprisingly, SpaceX is offering its Starship vehicle for MSR. Blue Origin is apparently considering leveraging parts of the Artemis lunar exploration campaign; The request for proposals allowed companies to leverage elements of Artemis, such as the Space Launch System and the lunar gateway, as government-supplied equipment for MSR.
In addition to the seven sector studies, NASA supports similar MSR studies through the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the Applied Physics Laboratory, and a group of NASA centers. Those studies will have a similar scope and schedule to the sector studies, Connelly said.
She said at the Space Studies Board meeting that NASA was sticking to the schedule for the April studies. Work on the studies will formally begin in mid-July, with an interim report in 45 days and a final report in 90 days. NASA will then review these studies to determine what, if any, changes need to be made to the MSR architecture. “Hopefully we can present a plan for the agency in early 2025.”
NASA included goals in the request for proposals to both reduce the total cost of MSR and achieve peak annual expenditures, but did not provide specific metrics. The agency has also not set a target for accelerating sample delivery. That was a conscious decision, Connelly said, to ensure that companies proposed designs that were realistic rather than concepts intended to meet a specific cost or schedule target.
Connelly and other NASA officials acknowledged at the meeting that there is no guarantee that any of the studies, designed to ask about what the agency calls “out of the box” approaches to MSR, will successfully reduce costs or advance schedule will accelerate.
“This is an opportunity to hear what industry has to tell us” about reducing the cost and timeline of MSR, said Jeff Gramling, director of the MSR program at NASA Headquarters, at the Space Meeting. Studies Board. “This is the agency that wants to follow up on this and make sure we haven’t missed anything before we establish the baseline for this mission.”