Mars Sample Return, Take 3

On its way out, the NASA administration under former President Joe Biden left its successors revised plans to return curated samples from the surface of Mars, an effort that could reveal whether life ever arose beyond Earth.

Omitted, however, was the option to recast the over-budget Mars Sample Return (MSR) baseline mission using a completely new architecture developed and sold by Rocket Lab. Instead, before leaving office in January—along with the rest of the Biden administration—former NASA Administrator Bill Nelson and managers unveiled two versions of a similar plan to bring back samples collected by the Mars Perseverance Rover.

Overseen by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the rover in 2021 began collecting rock and regolith samples from Jezero Crater, the site of an ancient lakebed and river channels. Scientists believe sediment from Jezero could have preserved samples of ancient bacterial life, if it existed there.

NASA’s revised plan for the MSR mission maintains its partnership with the European Space Agency, the primary contribution of which is a spacecraft to retrieve the samples from Mars orbit and fly them back to Earth.

The original mission was on track to cost as much as $11 billion—twice initial estimates—and take years longer to complete. NASA turned to private industry and its field centers in January 2024 for ideas to simplify the MSR mission, cut costs and return the samples sooner.

Ultimately, the agency decided to scale down the Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV), switch to a nuclear-powered landing platform and then use either its proven skycrane landing system or buy commercial Mars lander services from a U.S. industry partner. Both SpaceX and Blue Origin are developing heavyweight landers as part of NASA’s Artemis lunar exploration initiative.

The revisions could cut MSR mission costs to $5.8-7.7 billion, depending on which option is chosen, Nelson told reporters Jan. 7. Neither plan would return the samples before 2035.

Hours after the announcement, Rocket Lab, which provided one of a dozen MSR rapid architecture studies to NASA, posted details about its proposal, which purports to cut mission costs to less than $4 billion and to return the samples as early as 2031. The plan builds on technologies created and matured for Rocket Lab’s existing Electron and upcoming Neutron launch vehicles as well as the company’s experience building spacecraft and components, developing partnerships and operating in Earth orbit and beyond.

Rocket Lab proposes a three-launch MSR mission, beginning with a telecommunications satellite that would remain in Mars orbit and be available for use by NASA and other customers beyond the MSR campaign. Similar to the agency’s plan, the company would develop and fly a sample-return lander, an MAV and an Earth-return orbiter.

“We bring to the table a commercial approach, which is more affordable and which leverages our extensive launch vehicle and propulsion expertise and a lot of other innovating and capabilities,” Richard French, Rocket Lab vice president of business development and strategy, tells Aviation Week. “We think we’re uniquely positioned to do this.”

Rocket Lab proposes a single-stage-to-orbit, liquid-propulsion MAV, a solar-powered lander and simplified robotic systems, including a seven-degree-of-freedom arm to transfer the samples from Perseverance onto the lander. It would use a heritage aeroshell design for Mars atmospheric entry and landing.

Rocket Lab said it could be prepared to launch the first leg of the mission—the telecommunications orbiter—in 2028, the next time Mars and Earth are favorably aligned for interplanetary flight.

“We love the opportunity to do science, and commercial capabilities are one of the key things that will help increase the opportunity to do more science at NASA,” French says. “We’re hopeful we’ll get a chance to do this.”