Cost overrun threatens Mars sample return mission – 12/10/2023 – Sideral Messenger

There is no doubt among planetary scientists that the most ambitious and important mission in the planning phase at NASA is to return samples from Mars. It could provide the definitive answer as to whether or not the red planet had life in its remote past. But talking has proven to be easier than doing, and the effort is at serious risk of collapsing under its own weight.

An independent panel appointed by the American space agency looked into the efforts, which in theory have already begun: the Perseverance rover, currently roaming Mars, has collected several samples in small tubes and has already deposited some of them on the ground, for future retrieval by another mission.

The complex undertaking, carried out in partnership with ESA (European Space Agency), would involve a module equipped with a rocket for the ascent of Mars and mini-helicopters to capture the samples, in addition to an orbital mothership capable of picking up the capsule with samples launched from the Martian surface and bring them back to Earth.

The work will only be completed, if all goes well, in 2033, at a cost originally estimated by NASA at US$4.4 billion. But the reality, as usual, appears to be harsher than the agency’s estimates. The panel calculated that the total price of the mission is likely to rise to between US$8 billion and US$11 billion. Experts estimate that the project has “almost zero probability” of being completed within the originally set budget. “There are currently no congruent and credible technical, cost, and schedule bases that can be pursued with the likely available funding,” they wrote in their report.

This is leading NASA to rethink the mission’s architecture, making it simpler – as, by the way, is the Chinese proposal for a similar feat, which will involve two parallel launches and promises to carry out the difficult task in 2031, two years before the Americans. .

There are those who even argue that the best option would be to simply cancel the sample return project and focus on a series of more modest robotic missions, capable of covering more ground on Mars, but without the challenge of bringing samples to Earth. This is the case of Robert Zubrin, aerospace engineer and president of the Mars Society, who recently defended the idea in an article in SpaceNews magazine – instead of a single complex mission worth US$10 billion, 20 missions worth US$500 million.

It’s not a bad idea. The worst thing would be to continue with everything as it is. A budget overrun will mean sacrificing other projects to cover the extra cost of returning samples from Mars, as has already happened with Veritas, a mission that the US space agency intended to send to Venus, but suspended indefinitely, due to technical and budgetary. As things move forward, NASA management will soon have other difficult choices ahead of them.

This column is published on Mondays in print, in Folha Corrida.

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