A private mission could return Martian samples to Earth by 2020 without even touching down on the Red Planet.
The BoldlyGo Institute, a Colorado-based nonprofit, is working to develop the Sample Collection to Investigate Mars (SCIM) mission, which would send a spacecraft skimming through the atmosphere of Mars to gather dust and return home, without the difficulty of landing. SCIM could launch as soon as 2018, possibly returning samples to Earth in July 2020.
“It sounds very daring, but it’s really very doable,” Laurie Leshing, a member of the BoldlyGo board of directors, said during a presentation June 3 at the 224th American Astronomical Meeting in Boston. “This is something we can do today.”
June 16th, 2014
Incredible Technology: Private Mars Mission Could Return Samples by 2020
June 3rd, 2014
Mars spacecraft research lands University of Exeter student top international fellowship Mid Devon Star
A student at the University of Exeter has been honoured with a prestigious international award, designed to promote female excellence in the pioneering sphere of aerospace research.
Anusha Mujumdar has been selected to receive a Zonta International Amelia Earhart Fellowship – one of only 35 students worldwide to be bestowed with the coveted award.
The third year PhD student in Applied Mathematics, from Bangalore, received the award to assist in her pioneering research, which will be used to help develop space craft control for the proposed Mars Sample Return mission, scheduled to take place in the 2020s.
March 7th, 2014
Project ‘Red Dragon’: Mars Sample-Return Mission Could Launch in 2022 with SpaceX Capsule
Scientists have blueprinted a low-cost Mars sample-return mission that would use a souped-up Dragon capsule from the private spacefligth company SpaceX and the firm’s planned Falcon Heavy rocket to get to the Red Planet by the early 2020s.
The new study demonstrates the viability of the entry, descent and landing of the unmanned Dragon space capsule at Mars. Moreover, the spacecraft’s descent technique would help set the stage for future human missions to the Red Planet, researchers said.
The idea is to leverage emerging commercial capabilities to achieve Mars sample-return (MSR) without breaking the bank, perhaps in 2022. Most scientists regard a sample-return trip as a “Holy Grail” mission — the best way to look for signs of past or present life on the Red Planet.
November 12th, 2013
Martian moon samples will have bits of Mars Brown University
A Russian mission to the Martian moon Phobos, launching in 2020, would return samples from Phobos that contain bits and pieces of Mars itself. A new study calculates how much Martian material is on the surface of Phobos and how deep it is likely to go.
September 27th, 2013
Cache and Not Carry: Next Mars Rover to Collect Samples for Return to Earth—Someday Scientific American
Have rover, need payload. That’s the state of things for NASA, which is planning to launch its next rover to Mars in 2020. The rover has ambitious goals, including searching for signs of habitability and life on the Red Planet, and collecting rock samples to be stored for future return to Earth. Now, NASA is asking scientists to propose instruments that will help the spacecraft accomplish its mission.
The space agency released an “announcement of opportunity” on September 24 calling for proposals by December 23. Researchers who plan to put an instrument in the hat must file a heads-up about their plans, called a notice of intent, by October 15.
December 11th, 2012
The resurrection of Mars Sample Return The Space Review
There had been rumors for a couple of weeks that NASA would make a big announcement about Mars at one of the largest annual meetings of scientists, the American Geophysical Union (AGU) conference in San Francisco. The rumors were about the possibility that NASA’s Curiosity rover had discovered something very interesting on Mars. As it turned out, the Curiosity science results, although interesting, were not nearly up to the hype. But NASA did make a major announcement at AGU: NASA is taking the first step towards the ultimate scientific goal for the red planet, Mars Sample Return.
You can be forgiven if you missed it, because NASA was careful not to use the words “Mars Sample Return” in their press release. Instead, they announced that they are going to build another rover, based on the successful Curiosity design and using some spare parts manufactured for Curiosity, to be launched in 2020. In the official press release, NASA stated that the instrument suite is still to be determined. But make no mistake, this is the first step toward sample return, and in many ways represents a major reversal for the Obama Administration.
To understand what happened, you have to know the context.
November 6th, 2012
Making Rocket Fuel on Mars (1978) Wired
In the late 1970s, through the initiative of its director, Bruce Murray, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) studied a range of possible Mars missions, including Mars Sample Return (MSR). Murray and others at the Pasadena, California-based lab were aware that funds for new Mars missions would be hard to come by; the U.S. economy was under strain and NASA, JPL’s main customer, was devoting most of its resources to developing the Space Shuttle. In addition, equivocal data from the astrobiology experiments on the twin Vikings, the first successful Mars landers, had damped public enthusiasm for the Red Planet. Would-be Mars explorers reasoned that, if an MSR mission would stand a chance of acceptance, then they would need to find technologies and techniques that could dramatically trim its anticipated cost.
October 26th, 2012
Mars visits remain a top NASA priority Florida Today
NASA will continue its plans to explore Mars despite uncertainty about where the country’s space program is headed , experts said Thursday.
Recent missions have been successful and future missions are on track, said Jim Green, director of the Planetary Science Division at NASA headquarters.
“We now know enough about Mars to know where to go,” he said .
Green made his comments at a two-day NASA-sponsored event at Lockheed Martin’s Global Visions Center in Arlington, Va., marking the 50th anniversary of planetary exploration.
A major goal of NASA’s Mars program is to bring pieces of the planet back to Earth for analysis, Green said.
October 18th, 2012
‘Biological Teleporter’ Will Find Martian DNA, Beam It Back to Earth TechNewsDaily
Scientific maverick J. Craig Venter says he is confident there is life on Mars and this week announced plans to send a “biological teleporter” to the Red Planet to find Martian DNA and beam it back to Earth.
“There will be life forms there,” Venter, who is best known for helping to sequence the human genome, said at a Wired Health conference held in New York this week.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Venter said he plans to send a machine to Mars to seek out Martian life and sequence its DNA. The alien genome could then be beamed back to Earth, where it could be reassembled in a super-secure space lab.
“People are worried about the Andromeda strain,” Venter said. “We can rebuild the Martians in a P-4 spacesuit lab instead of having them land in the ocean.”
October 10th, 2012
China considers more Mars probes before 2030 Xinhua
China is planning a three-phase probe to collect samples from the Mars by 2030, the chief scientist of the country’s lunar orbiter project said Wednesday.
The three stages are remote sensing, softlanding and exploration, and return after automatic sampling, said Ouyang Ziyuan at a lecture organized by Chinese Society of Astronautics.
Ouyang also briefed on the imminent tests of China’s lunar probe of the Chang’e-3, a moon-landing orbiter expected to be launched in the second half of 2013.