[NASA Perseverance Rover in a file image]
Washington: American space agency NASA is working on ten studies to examine more affordable and faster methods of bringing samples from Mars' surface back to Earth.
As part of the agency's Mars Sample Return Program, NASA has decided to award a firm-fixed-price contract for up to $1.5 million to conduct 90-day studies to seven industry proposers.
Additionally, NASA centers, CalTech's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and Johns Hopkins' Applied Physics Laboratory are producing studies. Once completed, NASA will assess all studies to consider alterations or enhancements to the Mars Sample Return architecture.
"Mars Sample Return will be one of the most complex missions NASA has undertaken, and it is critical that we carry it out more quickly, with less risk, and at a lower cost," said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.
"I'm excited to see the vision that these companies, centers and partners present as we look for fresh, exciting, and innovative ideas to uncover great cosmic secrets from the Red Planet", he added.
Over the last quarter century, NASA has engaged in a systematic effort to determine the early history of Mars and how it can help us understand the formation and evolution of habitable worlds, including Earth.
"As part of that effort, Mars Sample Return has been a long-term goal of international planetary exploration for the past two decades. NASA's Perseverance Rover has been collecting samples for later collection and return to Earth since it landed on Mars in 2021", the agency said.
In August 22, Perseverance rover had grabbed the 12th rock sample from the Mars surface.
According to the mission team's sample log, the first eight rock samples that Perseverance collected -- from September 2021 to March of this year -- were volcanic in origin.
But the last four, which were gathered between July 7 and August 3 -- all come from sedimentary rocks.
NASA's Mars Sample Return is a strategic partnership with ESA (the European Space Agency).
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