The American space agency NASA is abandoning its existing plans to collect soil samples from the planet Mars, as the mission to return the samples, scheduled for 2040, has a price tag of $11 billion and is taking too long to implement. This was reported by UNN with reference to BBC.
Details
The program to return materials collected on Mars to Earth for further analysis has faced serious obstacles.
The US space agency says that the current mission design cannot return samples by 2040 with the available funds. At the same time, the more realistic amount of $11 billion needed to carry out this mission is not possible.
The bottom line is that $11 billion is too expensive, and not returning the samples until 2040 is unacceptably too long
To bring back to Earth the key soil samples already collected by the Perseverance rover in recent years, NASA is calling on the scientific and business community to work on a new innovative plan using proven technologies.
The current architecture can be somewhat simplified, but if the samples are to return home by 2040, a new approach is needed.
We are looking at ready-made opportunities that could return samples earlier and at a lower cost
According to her, these new capabilities could include a smaller, simpler rocket for Mars.
NASA also promises that a new plan will probably appear no later than the end of 2024.
Recall
UNN reported that NASA's Perseverance rover found a wide range of organic molecules in a crater on Mars.
The United States landed the first spacecraft on the moon in 50 years, and during the descent, the Odyssey spacecraft had navigation problems that required 11 hours of engineer work to solve.
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