While NASA and the European Space Agency are preparing the Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission, a senior Chinese official has revealed the design of a mission that will also be collecting samples to return to Earth. A simpler, less scientific plan... To be the first?
A little Mars in the house
It has been several years since Chinese space authorities announced their intention to return samples from Mars' surface. However, these hopes have only begun to materialize after the successful launch of the Tianwen-1 mission last year, which was followed a few months later by the successful landing of the Zhurong rover. Ce dernier poursuit par ailleurs sa mission sur la surface actuellement, même s'il économise son énergie à cause de l'hiver martien.
Il n'est donc pas si surprenant de voir Sun Zezhou, responsable de Tianwen-1, présenter un concept détaillé de mission de récolte et de retour d'échantillons martiens. À un détail près : si elle venait à décoller dans la bonne fenêtre de tir, alors elle pourrait ramener son précieux matériel sur Terre deux années avant la mission conjointe entre Américains et Européens !
Chinese concepts and American concepts
The Chinese mission (now known as Tianwen-3) would make use of two décollages for a mission architecture that was very straightforward and based on elements that had been proven successful during the country's most recent lunar missions. A first launch would involve a large alternator that would land on the Martian surface and collect samples there (perhaps with the help of reuse, pellets, and a very small rover) before releasing the collected samples into an orbit-bound capsule.
The second mission vehicle would then join this one, taking them back to Earth and releasing a capsule with the échantillons on its way. So, using two "classic" rockets—a Longue Marche 5 and a Longue Marche 3B—China may be able to launch in 2027, land on Earth in 2029, and return to Mars in 2031.
The joint NASA and ESA mission to collect martian meteorites has already begun, with the Perseverance rover patiently traversing the delta of the Jezero crater to forage and collect priceless sediments at several key locations. However, recovering these ephemera won't be simple.
According to the current mission plan, two missions will launch in 2028 and land on the crater Jezero: one will use a recovery rover (and/or a helicopter-like Ingenuity), while the other will use a fuse that will rejoin the orbit once the ejecta is on board. Charge a second European mission to bring them home in 2033 using the ERO orbiter.
At the Retarded Game…
To put the charred before the beef would be wrong, whether on the Chinese or American sides. First off, even though there is every reason to think that Sun Zezhou's introduction is serious and sanctioned by Chinese space program officials, the completion of such an ambitious mission is still a ways off. And in five years, that is feasible.
But there could also be delays because China, which is frequently portrayed as being "more on time" than western organizations thanks to its extremely long-term programs, has repeatedly postponed its lunar missions Chang'E 5 and 6. Similarly, some reservations have put a kink in the NASA project's works, as well as the mission's estimated costs.
A prospective "first" who is already spilling a lot of ink
Furthermore, it would be incorrect to assume that the two mission profiles are equivalent. Undoubtedly, from a standpoint of pride, China may be the first country to launch martian échantillons. Which would not be without a certain pause a la 1960s "route to space."
But given the accuracy (and danger) of platform atterrissage, the Chinese device to gather and recover echantillons will undoubtedly be less ambitious than Perseverance, which scours a landscape for years and across many miles to locate the most interesting geological sites.
This is not to say that the cottage of a "simple" website is no longer of scientific interest. Simply put, the goals would not be the same. Watch to see if these predictions come true, but in every case, two trips to recover ephemera have a higher chance of success than one!