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It is considered by many engineers and scientists as the “Holy Grail” of robotic red planet exploration: a Mars Return Sample mission [SPACE.com]. Now, an international group of researchers from NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) have produced a report explaining how they could get a robotic explorer to scoop up rocks from the Martian surface, and then bring them back to Earth to let humans touch a piece of Mars.

Scientists say it would cost between $4.5 billion and $8 billion and would require the cooperation of several space agencies, but they also say there’s no reason not to do it.

The Soviet Union successfully returned rocks to Earth from the Moon during robotic missions in the 1970s. But since then, such complex sample-return missions have been regarded as prohibitively complicated and expensive [ABC News]. Now, space agencies say that bringing rocks back from Mars would serve as an intermediary step on the path to sending a manned expedition to our neighbor planet. Says researcher Monica Grady: “If you can’t bring a rock back you are not going to be able to bring people back” [The Guardian]. NASA and the ESA are expected to decide whether to pursue the mission in November.

In the most optimistic scenario, a US Atlas A 551 rocket would lift off in 2018 carrying a mobile rover - or stationary lander - that would be dropped down to the Martian surface to collect samples selected to give the broadest picture possible of the planet’s geological past. The payload would include a Mars Ascent Vehicle which would later blast off with the sample onboard [BBC News]. That ascent vehicle would rendezvous with an orbiter that had been shot up by a separate rocket, and the spacecraft would turn around and start back to Earth.

British researcher Colin Pillinger says he’s most concerned about the mission’s final step, when the Earth Entry Vehicle would drop down to Earth’s surface with its precious cargo of Mars rocks. The samples could contain hardy Martian microbes (although none are yet known to exist), and scientists would have to be wary of contaminating the Earth with them, he says. “There’s a big caveat when you start playing with Mars, and that’s planetary protection. You have to be very careful not to bring anything back that might be harmful to Earth,” he said. “Your mission has to be guaranteed, and I really mean guaranteed, to get into the Earth’s atmosphere without damaging itself” [The Guardian].

Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell

July 14th, 2008 Tags: European Space Agency, extraterrestrial life, Mars, NASA, space flight
by Eliza Strickland in Space | 2 comments | RSS feed | Trackback >