The stamp for the first courier shipment from Mars costs $ 7 billion. Delivery within 10 years

NASA and the European Space Agency estimate that the total cost of bringing Martian soil samples to Earth will be at least $ 7 billion. Launched yesterday into space, the Perseverance rover is the first step in a series of missions necessary to achieve this ambitious goal.

How to bring samples from Mars to Earth - an action plan

As part of the Mars 2020 mission, the Perseverance rover has just flown to Mars, whose main task will be to collect several dozen rock samples, place them in special titanium containers and leave them on the surface of Mars or on the rover itself.

These samples will then be collected and sent to Earth as part of two more missions currently scheduled to launch in 2026. The first will be a NASA-developed lander that will carry a rover that will collect samples prepared by Perseverance and deliver them to lander. Perseverance itself can deliver some of the samples directly to the lander. The samples will then be loaded into a container that will be launched into orbit aboard a small rocket now known as the Mars Ascent Vehicle.

The second mission will be the Earth Return Orbiter probe developed by the European Space Agency, whose task will be to capture a container with samples in orbit of Mars. Upon completion of this stage, the spacecraft will leave Mars orbit and head towards Earth. A capsule with Martian soil samples would land in the Utah desert in 2031.

The orbiter itself will be a large probe weighing about 6.5 tons, equipped with solar panels with a span of 35 meters. Large solar panels are needed to power the spacecraft's electric motors, which will allow it to raise and lower its altitude above the surface of Mars and return to Earth.

During the NASA press conference a few days ago, David Parker, director of the robotic and manned exploration program at the European Space Agency, announced that the contract for the construction of the Earth Return Orbiter probe will be awarded to the French company Airbus Defense and Space and the Italian Thales Alenia Space.

ESA has previously commissioned Airbus to develop a rover concept that will be shipped with the NASA lander. It will be twice the size of the European Rosalind Franklin rover (which was postponed from 2020 to 2022 a few months ago), but it will travel much faster on the surface of Mars to collect samples left by the Perseverance rover.

Lord, these are not cheap things

According to Parker, the estimated cost of ESA's participation in the entire Martian sampling program will be around 1.5 billion euros and will be spread over the next 10 years. NASA, on the other hand, is just starting the process of planning the remaining elements of the mission. Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA's deputy administrator, admitted that the first estimates of the cost of the US part of the mission are $ 2.5-3 billion. More accurate estimates, however, will emerge after the lander's mission plans are reviewed in some time.

The cost of the currently implemented Mars 2020 mission is about $ 2.4 billion, and for the first Martian year (687 days) of the Perseverance rover's operation on Mars, the agency received $ 300 million. This means that the total cost of the program, including all three missions and US and European participation, will be approximately $ 7 billion.

However, this amount does not include the cost of a specialized laboratory in which the samples will be stored after their return to Earth. Lisa Pratt, responsible for planetary conservation at NASA, assumes that this structure will guarantee a level of biological protection comparable to the most advanced centers dealing with the study of pagotegna.

Despite the enormous cost of the program and the challenges facing its implementation, scientists agree that bringing samples of Martian rocks to Earth is of key importance, because currently only here, on the spot, we are able to subject the samples to all the necessary tests that will allow us to find any biosignatures in rocks ... if they exist at all.



The stamp for the first courier shipment from Mars costs $ 7 billion. Delivery within 10 years

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

What is VoLTE and how can you activate it on your Xiaomi

So you can check the battery status of your Xiaomi smartphone and how many cycles you have performed

How to exit the FASTBOOT mode of your Xiaomi if you have entered accidentally

Does your Xiaomi charge slowly or intermittently? So you can fix it

Problems with Android Auto and your Xiaomi? So you can fix it

If your Xiaomi disconnects only from the WiFi it may be because of that MIUI setting

How to change the font in MIUI and thus further customize your Xiaomi: so you can change the type, color and size of the letters of MIUI

What is the Safe Mode of your Xiaomi, what is it for and how can you activate it

Improve and amplify the volume of your Xiaomi and / or headphones with these simple adjustments

How to activate the second space if your Xiaomi does not have this option