NASA to bring rock samples from Mars back to Earth

On November 10, NASA had released an independent review report indicating that the agency is now ready to undertake its’ Mars Sample Return (MSR) campaign to bring pristine samples from Mars to Earth for scientific study.

In a first, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is attempting to bring a sample of Mars back to Earth for scientists to study. In a statement NASA said, “The agency established the MSR Independent Review Board (IRB) to evaluate its early concepts for a groundbreaking, international partnership with ESA (European Space Agency) to return the first samples from another planet.”

The composite image provided by NASA shows the planet Mars and was created from over 100 images of Mars taken by Viking Orbiters in the 1970s.(AP)

On November 10, Nasa had released an independent review report indicating that the agency is now ready to undertake its’ Mars Sample Return (MSR) campaign to bring pristine samples from Mars to Earth for scientific study.

 

After an examination of the agency’s ambitious Mars Sample Return plan, the board’s report approved Nasa to go ahead with the plan saying in another statement, “After a thorough review of the agency’s planning over the past several years, the IRB unanimously believes that Nasa is now ready to carry out the MSR program, the next step for robotic exploration of Mars.”

How will NASA bring Mars rocks to Earth?

Nasa’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover was launched in July this year and is more than halfway to Mars. The Perseverance rover will gather samples from Martian rocks and soil using its drill. Once on Mars, Perseverance aims to cache rock and regolith samples in its collection tubes, leaving some of the rocks on the Martian surface for an ESA-provided “fetch” rover to collect and deliver them to a NASA-provided Mars Ascent Vehicle, which then would launch the samples into orbit around Mars. The ESA-provided Earth Return Orbiter would then take the rocks in a highly secure containment capsule for return to Earth in the 2030s. This entire process is called “sample caching”.

 

How will the study of Mars rocks help?

The study of Mars rocks will help “answer key astrobiology questions” as scientists want to analyze samples from Mars in hopes of ascertaining whether life ever existed on the planet.