By the end of this year, NASA may have a new plan in place for returning samples from Mars. The agency announced in October that it had convened an outside panel of experts to review a dozen studies from within and outside the agency on ways to reduce the cost of the Mars Sample Return (MSR) program and accelerate the return of samples. In December, the MSR Strategy Review Team will provide its recommendations to agency leadership for a decision.
That team will have plenty of options to choose from. Half of the studies examined the overall MSR architecture, from gathering the samples collected by the Perseverance rover to returning them to Earth. Most of the remaining studies focused on a single element of that architecture: the Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV), the rocket that will launch the samples into Martian orbit. Reducing the size of the MAV could have ripple effects throughout the entire architecture. A study by Quantum Space looked at the “anchorleg” of taking samples returned to cis-lunar space and bringing them the restof the way to Earth.
Reducing CostsThe Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), for instance, proposed an approach using a smaller lander and MAV that relies on the same “sky crane” technology that safely delivered the Perseverance and Curiosity rovers to Mars’ surface. That concept could cut the estimated $11 billion cost of MSR in half and enable a mid-2030s return of the samples, said JPL’s Matt Wallace at the Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group (MEPAG) meeting on Nov. 6.
Rocket Lab, a late addition to the studies — it announced its participation only in early October — claims to offer even steeper savings. While the company has not publicly presented its plans, an abstract of its proposal published by NASA indicates it aims to reduce the overall cost of MSR to less than $2 billion. The concept leverages Rocket Lab’s upcoming Neutron rocket and its expertise in low-cost spacecraft.
The MSR Strategy Review Team will face the formidable task of evaluating the viability of these diverse proposals to find the approach most likely to reduce costs and shorten schedules. (The committee need not pick a single concept but can mix and match elements from different studies, NASA says, a flexibility that may only add to the difficulty). The biggest challenge, though, is that their work may all be for naught.
The Trump-Musk FactorThe timeline for NASA’s MSR assessment means that a decision might be made just before the Trump administration takes office. While the incoming administration has said nothing about MSR specifically, it’s likely they will, at the very least, review any decision made by NASA Administrator Bill Nelson in what are likely his final weeks on the job.
Radical changes to the program could be on the table. A program that is years behind schedule and billions of dollars over its initial cost projections could become a target for a Trump administration focused on slashing government spending. On the other hand, canceling MSR would open the door for China to become the first nation to return samples from Mars, dealing a blow to American leadership in space exploration.
Alternatively, MSR could be overtaken by events. Elon Musk has discussed sending Starships to Mars as soon as 2026. With Musk in Trump’s inner circle, he could make the case for using Starships to return samples faster and cheaper than conventional approaches. SpaceX is among the companies that participated in the MSR studies, but has shared no details about its proposal, other than indicating it would rely on Starship.
“We’re very happy that we have a range of options that are being looked at,” Jeff Gramling, MSR program director at NASA Headquarters, said at the ME-PAG meeting. “We think we’re going to be able to come forward with a plan.”That meeting, though, took place the day after the election, which means that the plan NASA comes up with in December may not be the final word on the program’s future.
This article first appeared in the December 2024 issue of SpaceNews Magazine.