I propose we call it Rover.
UK engineers will design a robot that can retrieve rock samples on Mars so they can be sent to Earth for study. The European Space Agency is issuing contracts to industry to spec the technology needed for what will be a complex joint undertaking with the US.
Nasa will send a rover to Mars in 2020. This will search for interesting materials, drilling and scooping them from the surface and caching them in canisters. These will be dropped at various depot points. There could be 30-plus of these pen-sized tubes awaiting pick-up.
In 2026, the recovery mission will be launched. The Americans will land an "ascent vehicle" (essentially a rocket) on Mars together with the European fetch rover. The latter will trundle off to find and gather up the canisters, delivering them back to the rocket.
I'm not clear on why there need to be two rovers. Can't the one which gathers the samples place them in the retrieval rocket ?
Within roughly 150 days, the space agencies want the canisters lifted off Mars by the ascent vehicle. It will rendezvous with a European orbiter that will take charge of the samples and carry them to Earth. A descent capsule will bring down the precious cargo somewhere over the US.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-44728947
Likely: it would cut into search and sample-selection time. Finding interesting formations is an expensive search. Retrieving saampless from known locations, fairly cheap. Time and (ground) travel are both significant opportunity costs. Mass and durability as well.
ReplyDeleteEducated guess: a retrieval Rover will minimize the weight of the return vehicle.
ReplyDeleteDan Eastwood If the RR itself is returned. Transfer of vials alone would be even lower mass (modulo packaging).
ReplyDeleteEducated guess: there is budget for first mission while second is cloudy idea.....
ReplyDeleteEdward Morbius I wasn't thinking the RR would be returned, but that any automation/mechanism needed to load the sample would be part of the RR and not the return vehicle.
ReplyDeleteSee, I'd have thought that if you can design a rover able to collect rock samples and store them in vials, being able to transfer those vials to a landing probe ought to incur minimum or zero additional weight or other requirements. I thought it might be due to the long duration between missions, but Curiosity's nuclear power source argues against that.
ReplyDeleteRhys Taylor It'd be interesting to find the design discussions / considerations.
ReplyDelete