Mars Sample Return

[TwoTribes]

ESA Member States Call for Cancellation of Earth Return Orbiter - European Spaceflight

ESA Member States have called for the cancellation of the Earth Return Orbiter, with the agency to explore reusing some elements.

europeanspaceflight.com

 

[FighterJock]

Oh help Two Tribes, that is not good news. How long will we have to wait for a Mars Sample Return mission in that case? 2030s? It certainly looks as if it is going to be heading that way.

 

[Byeman]

Oh help Two Tribes, that is not good news. How long will we have to wait for a Mars Sample Return mission in that case? 2030s? It certainly looks as if it is going to be heading that way.

The US portion was already cancelled.

 

[Archibald]

Pretty infuriating to think about all those samples cached by Perseverance. Wonder if they will be brought back to Earth someday.

Of course they aren't going anywhere and the tubes are probably pretty though; hence they can wait a decade or two. Even if Perseverance tracks and the tubes are buried in Mars dust, I presume they could still easily be found, like: their positions were carefully pinpointed.

Overall it is a bit of an absurd situtation. After 40 years of paper studies and budget/politics no-go (1977-2017) Perseverance finally achieved the first half of MSR - only for the second half to be canned, after samples caching. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_2020#Gallery

@blackstar - a lot of past MSR studies tried to pack everything (lander, rover, sampling, return rocket and capsule) into a single probe and single mission. Made MSR enormously expensive, so I presume this is the reason Perseverance got the first half of MSR with another mission for the other half, mostly launch, return and earth reentry.
I presume it was at atempt at spreading the cost over a decade and multiple spacecraft plus ESA involvement of course.

I think it was a clever strategy, and still it blew in their faces, with the samples now blocked on Mars as their return ticket has been cancelled.