Representatives of NASA and the ESA held a meeting of the working group on the study of Mars (MEPAG) on July 26, during which they discussed some details of the plan for the delivery samples of Martian soil to the Earth. This is reported by the Space com portal.
Start of mission Mars 2020, as it became known earlier, is appointed for summer 2020, and in February 2021 the rover should begin work on a surface of a Red planet, namely - in 50-meter crater of Jesero in equatorial regions of Mars were once in antiquity the river delta settled down. The main task of the six-wheeled rover is to drill the ground and take samples.
Earlier, ESA reported that afterward the "traces of life" will have to be sent to Earth for further research in local laboratories. However, no details, especially about the timing, were disclosed by representatives of space agencies.
According to Space com, during the meeting last week it was discussed that the mission to deliver the Martian samples to Earth involves two launches in 2026. The first - in the summer of 2026 - to Mars should launch a landing platform and another rover from NASA. The vehicles will arrive at their destination in 2028. The objectives of the new rover - to find sealed tubes with samples collected by Mars 2020, and deliver them to the landing platform.
Then the samples will be loaded on a special rocket, which will put them into orbit, where there will be an orbital module from ESA. The spacecraft of the ESA should start in the autumn of 2026, its journey to Mars will last about a year. It is worth noting that all the vehicles in this mission will fly to the Red Planet on a "non-standard trajectory".
Brian Murhed from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory NASA said that the European orbiter will install tubes with samples inside a special system with a protective shell, and then sterilize again - probably by means of thermal impact. Thus there will be a guarantee that materials from another"s planet will be sealed up and will not get into the atmosphere of the Earth.
The direct arrival of the soil from the Red Planet to the Earth is expected approximately by 2031. The spacecraft will land on a test site in Utah, specified Jim Watzin, head of the program to study Mars at NASA.
According to him, if something goes wrong, then the Mars 2020 - provided that it will still function - will be able to deliver samples to the landing platform. However, neither NASA nor ESA have yet received official approval from the authorities, so plans to send soil from the Red Planet to Earth remain at the concept stage. "We need to get the mission plan together and present it to the decision-makers by the end of 2019, " Watsin said.