NASA is starting a fresh effort to figure out how to get the samples already collected by the Perseverance rover back to Earth, Space.com reports. The initiative is called the Perseverance Sample Retrieval Architecture, or PSRA.
Tiffany Morgan, director of NASA’s Mars Exploration Program, outlined it on Nov. 9 during a meeting of the Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group. The work is supposed to develop impartial recommendations for retrieving the cached samples, assess proposed mission requirements, review earlier lessons and evaluate current capabilities and acquisition options. A strategy-team kickoff is planned for January 2027, with a final report due in winter 2027-2028.
Perseverance has been collecting and caching specimens in Jezero Crater since it landed in February 2021, including samples left on the surface and others stored on the rover, plus bits of atmosphere. Earlier Mars Sample Return plans ran into cost and schedule trouble, with one independent review putting a price tag around $11 billion and a return as late as 2040, a figure NASA itself judged too expensive and too slow. Another appraisal suggested a return as early as 2035 for about $8 billion. How PSRA deals with that history is still to be determined.
My take
The samples are already on Mars. That’s the part that’s easy to forget after years of redesigns and sticker shock. Starting over on the architecture is better than leaving those tubes sitting in Jezero because the last plan didn’t close. I’ll be watching for whether the January kickoff produces something that can actually fly, not just another study.
God Bless, and Use the Source!
