NASA Set To Make Mars Sample Return Mission Decision By End-of-Year

NASA is on schedule to determine by the end of 2024 how to revise its Mars Sample Return (MSR) program to cut costs and shorten timelines, according to NASA officials.

Jeff Gramling, MSR Program Director at NASA Headquarters spoke at a meeting of the Committee on Astrobiology and Planetary Sciences and confirmed the agency received final reports from 12 studies exploring alternative MSR architectures.

Eight of the studies came from industry, including Blue Origin, Lockheed Martin, SpaceX, and Rocket Lab. Four were conducted by NASA teams, including the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the Marshall Space Flight Center. The studies focused on full mission architectures, reducing the size and mass of the Mars Ascent Vehicle, and returning samples from lunar orbit.

An independent review team, the MSR Strategy Review (MSR-SR), will evaluate the studies and provide recommendations to NASA leadership by December.

"What we’re looking for is an architecture that gives us the highest likelihood of returning samples to Earth before 2040 and, if possible, for less than $11 billion," - Jeff Gramling, MSR Program Director at NASA Headquarters

NASA hopes the review will lead to a cheaper, faster MSR program. While MSR-SR doesn’t need to recommend a specific architecture, it will draw on lessons from all proposed designs. A final decision is expected by the end of the year.