Scenario 3: Mars Sample Return
SC1: Nicolas Mangold
SC2: John Bridges
Style of Mission
Mars Sample Return (MSR) is a big technological step subsequent to automated rovers and landers. MSR is a completely new style of mission with multiple landing on Mars. First, MAX-C will land on Mars simultaneously as Exomars. MAX-C will collect samples (about 20) and keep them in a cache. A synergy should exist in between Exomars discoveries and MAX-C cache samples to sample rocks with the highest interest. The cache will be collected a few years after with a Mars Sample Return Lander.
This space probe will be divided into two parts. First, a rover will consist of a fetch rover that will drive to MAX-C and collect the cache, and bring it back to the lander. Second, this probe will include a Mars Ascent Vehicle that will launch the sample container into stable Martian orbit. The Mars Sample Orbiter will finally collect the samples in Martian orbit, and bring them back to Earth. Science will drive MSR sites and goals, but the mission is a technological challenge. Multi-element MSR should not be viewed as an single mission but as a cohesive campaign that builds on the past decade of Mars exploration.
Goals of mission
The main goals of the overall MSR campaign are still into definition phase. Preliminary goals include: Assess any evidence for past life or its precursors. Reconstruct the history of surface processes involving water, as well as non-aqueous processes. Constrain the nature and timing of planet-wide climate changes. Constrain the internal evolution of Mars, including magmatic and magnetic history. Assess potential environmental hazards for future human exploration. MAX-C being landed at the same time as Exomars, a synergy should exist between landing site criteria of both missions.
Preliminary criteria for the landing site
Preliminary criteria for the landing site for the overall MSR campaign are under definition. Current engineering constraints are : Land in ~10 km radius landing ellipse, up to -1 km altitude, within +25 to -15 degrees latitude for MAX-C.
Preliminary Planning for an International Mars Sample Return Mission. Report of the iMars (International Mars Architecture for the Return of Samples). 2008, iMARS Working Group, 55pp. http://mepag.jpl.nasa.gov/reports/iMARS_FinalReport.pdf
Science Criteria
Scientific criteria are, by priority levels:
- a suite of rocks including sediments deposited in standing bodies of water over a wide range of age and including diverse alteration minerals and facies.
- Old Noachian rocks are favored relative to late stages sedimentary deposition.
- Hydrothermally altered rocks with various mineralogy. Predominance of sediments over hydrothermal rocks is still debated for exobiology.
- Sites should also include a suite of fresh igneous rocks of well-defined stratigraphy, with as much diversity in age as possible.
MEPAG ND-SAG (2008). Science Priorities for Mars Sample Return, Unpublished white paper, 70 pp, posted March 2008 by the Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group (MEPAG) at http://mepag.jpl.nasa.gov/reports/index.html