Miami – The POT He indicated this Monday that he plans to bring to the Land during the 2030s the Martian soil samples collected by the Perseverance robot, and at a cost of between $8,000 and $11,000 million, despite the budgetary challenges it faces.
As announced this Monday by the administrator of the US space agency, Bill Nelson, they remain committed to collecting samples, or some of them, that the rover began collecting since it arrived on the red planet in 2021.
The NASA administrator highlighted that according to the budget for fiscal year 2025, as well as the anticipation of future budget limitations, based on the current design of the mission, the Martian samples could not be returned until 2040, a date “very distant.”
However, he noted that they will make adjustments to have them during the 2030s.
“Landing and collecting the samples safely, launching a rocket with the samples from another planet (which has never been done before) and safely transporting the samples more than 33 million miles back to Earth is not a easy task”defended the NASA administrator.
The date and cost announced today represent an adjustment after updating the mission with “reduced complexity, improved resilience, risk posture, greater accountability and coordination,” according to a NASA statement.
The above was in response to an independent report requested by the space agency and released in September 2023, which estimated that the mission design was based on an “unrealistic budget and programming.”
The Mars Sample Return (MSR) “will be one of the most complex missions NASA has ever undertaken,” Nelson stressed this Monday during a teleconference.
The US space agency is asking its different departments to work on a revised plan that reduces the cost, risk and complexity of the mission.
Perseverance has been collecting soil samples in the Jezero crater, north of the Martian equator and where the presence of rivers that crossed the crater wall has been discovered, which would have turned it into a lake, according to scientists.
The mission to bring back the Martian samples involves the sending of other robots and helicopters based on Ingenuity, the NASA helicopter that completed its last flight in January of this year. Mars.