TapTechNews reports on May 11 that in an effort to further reduce the costs of the 'Mars Parcel Retrieval' mission, Boeing has introduced a new solution using the currently most expensive SLS rocket.
The Independence Assessment report released by NASA in April this year estimated the cost of sending a spacecraft to Mars, collecting samples gathered by the Perseverance rover, and returning them to Earth at no less than $11 billion, noting the requisite technology is still immature, potentially delaying the mission to 2040.
During this week's Wednesday 'Humans to Mars' Summit, long-time head of planetary science at NASA, Jim Green, introduced Boeing's streamlined, full-process solution.
Boeing's proposal simplifies the Mars sample return by consolidating the process but stirs cost concerns again.
The basic idea envisioned by NASA involved two launches: one to send American-made landers and small rockets to lift Martian samples for orbit retrieval, and another using European spacecrafts to rendezvous with the sample carriers in Martian orbit before bringing them back to Earth.
While Jim Green touted the advantages of conducting the Mars sample return mission with just one rocket and one spacecraft, he highlighted that the utilized SLS is currently the most expensive rocket. Although cost-cutting measures were put in place by NASA and Boeing, the NASA Inspector General reported last year that the launch cost for SLS is unlikely to drop below $2 billion (about 14.46 billion RMB).
Green mentioned that Boeing has not yet evaluated the cost of this new unified approach but overall, it is expected to be costly. NASA officials will later this year review these new proposals to decide how to proceed with the Mars sample return mission, aiming to retrieve samples from Mars by the 2030s.
Further reading:
'Mars Sample Return Program Hindered by Budget Shortfalls, NASA Seeks Faster, Cheaper Solutions'