Will Mars Sample Return Ever Return A Mars Sample?

Keith’s note: Mars Sample Return, however well-intentioned and lauded by advisory committees, has been tossed around and modified and rescheduled so many times that it is no longer clear what it should do – or if it is even needed. It has always been somewhat gospel that NASA would not send human crews to Mars until a sample return mission had allowed the question of current life to be addressed. The current scenario has a Mars sample return to Earth in 2033 and (one would guess) basic findings a year later. A decade ago NASA talked about sending humans to Mars in the mid 2030s. Now it is the 2040s. Given the increasingly slow pace and out of control costs with which NASA develops human spaceflight capabilities, in order to meet a mid 2040s goal, basic mission design and hardware development needs to happen shortly after the sample comes back to Earth. Add in recent JPL layoffs, private plans by SpaceX et al to simply go there regardless of a sample return mission, and China’s plans to do sample return sooner than the U.S., and the entire NASA Mars Sample Return paradigm has become hopelessly clouded and conflicted. Given incredible advances in nanotechnology and genomics perhaps it is time to consider in situ life detection missions that actually look for life instead of sniffing around the edges. Here is what NASA OIG said the other day:

• The trajectory of the MSR Program’s life-cycle cost estimate, which has grown from $2.5 to $3 billion in July 2020, to $6.2 billion at KDP-B in September 2022, to an unofficial estimate of $7.4 billion as of June 2023 raises questions about the affordability of the Program. Characteristics intrinsic to big and complex missions like the MSR Program are hard to quantify in estimates but can drive project costs upwards throughout development. These include fully understanding the mission’s complexity, initial over-optimism, a less than optimal design/architecture, and the team’s ability to perform to expectations. When developing its cost and schedule estimate for KDP-C, and as the MSR Program addresses its architecture issues, Program management must consider these intrinsic characteristics and not attribute past cost growth to just the COVID-19 pandemic, inflation, or supply chain issues.
• Additionally, MSR Program formulation is impacted by coordination challenges between NASA and ESA. While communication processes are formally documented and being followed, NASA and ESA are experiencing issues related to schedule transparency, asynchronous design progress, and mass allocation, which appear to stem from differing operational approaches, acquisition strategies, and agency funding mechanisms. The CCRS project team noted that significant progress has been made addressing interface issues between the two entities.
• The MSR Program recently acknowledged it likely cannot meet the life-cycle cost estimate and launch dates established at KDP-B. A September 2023 report by an Independent Review Board recommended the Program consider modifications to specific mission designs. Accordingly, it is critical that before the MSR Program is approved to proceed from formulation into development, viable alternatives to the Program’s mission architecture are considered—including mission launch and sample return alternatives—as well as the value of the samples returned, the Program’s schedule, life-cycle cost estimate, and the Agency’s historic leadership position in space exploration.