Next Phase Reached In Definition Of Mars Sample Return Mission

The Phase A2 activity will address many critical issues and identify key areas in which Europe can participate in this flagship of the Aurora Programme.

The search for evidence of life outside the Earth is one of the fundamental goals of space exploration, and has been one of the driving forces behind the efforts to explore the planet Mars. This investigation, key to unlocking the ‘big’ question regarding life in the universe, is increasing in pace and is already beginning to provide answers. This is also one of the leading scientific threads of ESA’s Aurora Space Exploration Programme that was approved at the ESA Council meeting at Ministerial level held in Berlin last December.
Currently four orbiting explorers are scanning the surface of Mars in ever more detail, including Europe’s own Mars Express, while on the Red Planet itself two NASA rovers are due to be joined in 2013 by ESA’s ExoMars rover. The ExoMars mission will take Mars exploration and the search for life to a new level, with an advanced set of life detection instruments as well as the capability to drill into the Martian surface to search for signs of life, a first for Mars. These missions, while providing a wealth of data, are however somewhat limited in that they must take the laboratory to Mars, facing restrictions on power, mass and having to carry out scientific operations in a very harsh environment. The obvious question then arises; why not bring Mars to the laboratory? Hence, the Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission.

The MSR mission has been recognised by European and International scientists as one of the next major milestones in the exploration of the Red Planet, and would represent a quantum leap in the study of possible life there with scientists able to use the full range of Earth based facilities and laboratories. This mission also represents a critical step on the path to the ultimate goal of performing a human mission to Mars, since it involves the full sequence of landing, operating, launching from Mars and returning back to Earth. The technology developments required to enable a MSR mission are also to some extent common to future lunar exploration missions.

ESA recognises the importance of this mission in the frame of the European Aurora Programme, and is now embarking on a twelve month Mars Sample Return Systems Study. This work, which builds on a first study step initiated in 2003, will prepare the way for Europe to play a key role in an international MSR mission. Past ESA work has already defined as a starting point an MSR mission launched in two parts. The first consists of a Mars orbiter and an Earth return capsule, while the second carries the surface lander and the Mars ascent vehicle which will launch the sample into Mars orbit ready for return to Earth. The new ‘MSR Phase A2 Systems Study’, which will be undertaken by European industry in close coordination with ESA, will be performed in two main steps.

The first step will address the remaining options still to be assessed and choices to be made with respect to the overall mission design. This includes the option of having the orbiter ‘capture’ the sample container in Mars orbit, or having the ascent vehicle perform a docking manoeuvre. This trade-off, as with much of the work to be performed in this first step, will draw upon the technology development and experience gained during the initial phases of the Aurora Programme.