NASA has set a mission for 2033 to bring in the first Martian soil samples collected by the Perseverance rover, a complex mission that will have to send other robots, including two new helicopters, as reported Wednesday.

In a teleconference, the US space agency said that in the Mars Sample Return Program, the European Space Agency (ESA) Earth Return Orbiter robot, which also participates in this program, is expected to be sent to the red planet in the fall of 2027. . . .

In the summer of 2028, NASA’s Sample Retrieval Lander will do the same, which will carry the tiny Mars Ascension Rover rocket nearly 3 meters (10 feet) high and the robot arm of the ESA Sample Transfer Arm.

NASA will bring samples from the surface of Mars

The Sample Retrieval Lander will also carry two small helicopters capable of collecting samples placed on the Martian surface, which will collect samples over the course of four days.

Both flying devices are based on the NASA helicopter Ingenuity, which has made 29 flights to Mars since last year and has seen its expected lifespan exceeded by more than a year.

The new helicopters, which will have robotic arms and small wheels, will move at a range of up to 700 meters. The recovery module will be located within a distance of 50 meters where tubes of approximately 150 grams will be left with the samples.

Main means of transport

As NASA’s associate director of science Thomas Zurbuchen emphasized during a teleconference on Wednesday, Wonderful The performance of the Perseverance rover on the Martian surface, and this has led engineers and experts to choose it as the primary means of transporting samples to NASA’s Sample Retrieval Lander module.

That leaves ESA’s Sample Fetch instrument, which will go to Mars in the middle of this decade and will no longer be part of this mission, to be set aside.

Zurbuchen noted that these “significant and advantageous” changes to the plan are directly tied to the achievements of Perseverance, which the team is confident will remain operational beyond 2030, as well as the “excellent performance” of the Ingenuity helicopter.

excellent speeches

David Parker, Director of Human and Robotic Exploration at ESA, said at the teleconference that the agency’s conversations with NASA were “excellent”. That’s given the launch of the ExoMars rover to Mars, now dubbed Rosalind Franklin, whose launch date could be set at a European “ministerial meeting” next fall.

Since its arrival at Jezero Crater on February 18, 2021, Perseverance has collected a total of 11 Martian soil samples from the atmosphere. Up to thirty samples are expected to be available for shipment to Earth.

Parker highlighted the complexity of this historic mission, which will for the first time place samples from another planet on Earth and travel aboard the Earth Return Orbiter.

He added that the Sample Transfer Arm will “robotically place” the sample tubes into a container before they are launched from the surface of the Red Planet.

As announced Wednesday, carrying samples from Mars will allow scientists around the world to examine the samples with sophisticated instruments that are too large and complex to send them to the Red Planet.