NASA can save the Mars Sample Return mission by going commercial

NASA’s Mars Sample Return mission is starting to experience the kinds of cost overruns that have plagued previous high-profile space projects such as the Space Launch System and the James Webb Space Telescope. The situation is causing concern in Congress as budgets begin to tighten.

Ars Technica reported in June that the total cost of the Mars Sample Return has ballooned from $4.4 billion to the vicinity of $10 billion. Senate appropriators are not amused. They allocated $300 million to the Mars Sample Return, less than a third of the $949 million requested by the Biden administration, The senators also promised to rescind the $300 million, killing the project, unless NASA could promise that the overall cost would not exceed $5.3 billion. NASA has already spent more than $1 billion on the project, leaving $4 billion left to spend,

The Mars Sample Return mission is one of the most complex space missions ever attempted. According to the current schedule, a Sample Retrieval Lander would launch from Earth in 2028. It would carry two helicopters similar to the Ingenuity now operating in the skies over Mars and a small rocket. The Sample Return Lander would touch down near the Mars Perseverance rover that has been collecting samples and storing them for retrieval. The samples would be transferred to the rocket carried along by the Sample Return Lander along with more samples collected by the two helicopters. The rocket would fly into Mars orbit where it would meet and dock with a separate spacecraft and transfer the samples. The spacecraft would then fly back to Earth to arrive in the early to mid-2030s.

The chances of NASA getting the costs of the Mars Sample Return mission under control would seem to be remote. Unlike the Space Launch System and the James Webb Space Telescope, Congress seems to be unwilling to just cover the extra costs. The mission is in danger of being canceled and the unspent funds being transferred to other programs.

Clearly, it is time for NASA to try a different approach. Instead of attempting to get the Mars Sample Return mission under control, the space agency should allocate the extra $4 billion that it’s been told it can spend to a Mars Sample Return prize. Any private entity that can retrieve the samples from the Martian surface and return them to Earth gets the $4 billion.

The advantage of this approach to NASA is obvious. The fixed price of $4 billion would not increase. Also, the space agency would not pay out the money until the winner of the prize competition delivers the Mars samples intact.

How would such a commercial mission work? By a strange coincidence, Elon Musk’s SpaceX is working on a giant rocket called Starship which, among other things, is intended to transport people and cargo between the Earth and Mars. Starship would seem to be the perfect vehicle to go to Mars, collect Mars samples and return them to Earth.

SpaceX already plans to send an uncrewed Starship to Mars and back as a precursor for Elon Musk’s dream of sending human settlers to the Red Planet. The Starship would land on Mars and then immediately start converting carbon dioxide and water ice into the rocket fuel it needs to return to Earth. While the rocket ship manufactures the fuel, it can collect the Mars samples that Perseverance has obtained and stored. Indeed, considering that Starship can carry more than 100 metric tons of stuff, it can collect even more samples, perhaps by using AI-enhanced robots.

SpaceX would have a head start for the Mars Sample Return prize, but no doubt other private companies would like to give it a go. Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin comes to mind.

In any case, commercializing the Mars Sample Return mission and making it into a prize competition would continue the journey NASA has taken, away from doing projects in-house to serving as a commercial customer. Commercial Orbital Transport Services, Commercial Crew, the Human Landing System and Commercial Lunar Payload Services are current examples of this approach that have succeeded.

If NASA extends the commercial approach to planetary missions like the Mars Sample Return, it will spark a revolution in the way we do robotic missions in the same way we now do human spaceflight. The benefits will be almost beyond evaluation.

Mark Whittington, who writes frequently about space policy, has published a political study of space exploration entitled “Why is It So Hard to Go Back to the Moon?” as well as “The Moon, Mars and Beyond,” and, most recently, “Why is America Going Back to the Moon?” He blogs at Curmudgeons Corner.  He is published in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, The Hill, USA Today, the LA Times and the Washington Post, among other venues.