New rover will fetch Martian soil samples
The Mars Sample Return mission will bring samples of the Red Planet back to Earth by 2030
NASA and ESA are working on plans for a future mission to retrieve the samples collected by the Mars 2020 rover. Current rovers and landers have a limited capacity to analyse the soil they collect, but with the proposed Mars Sample Return campaign, these samples can be brought back to Earth for much more in-depth analysis. As it explores the surface, Mars 2020 will collect 36 small sample tubes and leave them ready for the retrieval mission, which will consist of several stages. A Sample Return Lander will land near the Mars 2020 site, where it will deploy the small Sample Fetch Rover to collect the tubes. The rover will then return to the landing site and load the samples into a Mars Ascent Vehicle, which will take off from Mars and enter orbit. From there, the Earth Return Orbiter will catch the ascent vehicle and return to Earth. The Earth Return Orbiter will seal the samples in a biocontainment unit to prevent contamination during the return journey and re-entry. Once retrieved, scientists all over the world will be able to study them with a variety of advanced techniques, providing us with much more detail than we have discovered so far with rovers alone. ESA have commissioned aerospace manufacturer Airbus to investigate designs for the Sample Fetch Rover and the Earth Return Orbiter. In a press release, Airbus project manager for the Sample Fetch Rover study Ben Boyes explained the significance of the mission.“with the combined expertise of ESA and NASA, this landmark mission is ambitious and technologically very advanced, with two rovers interacting together on Mars for the first time. "A double first of launching from the planet’s surface and the in-orbit transfer of the samples means it will be possible for the first time to directly study Mars soil in laboratories on Earth.”
“Mars 2020 will collect 36 samples of soil ready for the retrieval mission”