Bridenstine to Lead NASA Mars Sample Return Strategy Review

In a post on NASA’s Science Mission Directorate website yesterday, NASA disclosed establishment of a Mars Sample Return Strategy Review Team to assess 11 studies of alternatives for returning samples of Mars to Earth. The independent team, led by former NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, will not recommend acquisition strategies or partners, but examine options. The agency also set up a “NASA analysis team” composed mostly of NASA employees to provide programmatic input.

NASA is trying to find a way to return the samples now being collected by the Mars Perseverance rover back to Earth less expensively and more quickly than what the agency has been planning. An independent review of the joint NASA/ESA program last year concluded it would cost as much as $11 billion and had a “near-zero chance” of meeting its schedule, prompting NASA to reach out for new ideas.

The Perseverance rover already has left 10 cigar-shaped sample tubes at a “depot” in the Three Forks region of Jezero Carter on Mars for later retrieval. Additional tubes are stored inside Perseverance as it continues its exploration of the martian surface.

In June, NASA awarded 10 study contracts and added an 11th earlier this month to submit ideas on a quick-turnaround basis. The industry proposers received $1.5 million fixed-price study contracts.

• Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL),  Pasadena, CA (a federally funded research and development center, or FFRDC, operated for NASA by the California Institute of Technology, which manages the existing Mars Sample Return program)
• Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (JHUAPL), Laurel, MD (a university-affiliated research center, or UARC)
• Lockheed Martin, Littleton, Colorado: “Lockheed Martin Rapid Mission Design Studies for Mars Sample Return”
• SpaceX, Hawthorne, California: “Enabling Mars Sample Return With Starship”
• Aerojet Rocketdyne, Huntsville, Alabama: “A High-Performance Liquid Mars Ascent Vehicle, Using Highly Reliable and Mature Propulsion Technologies, to Improve Program Affordability and Schedule”
• Blue Origin, Kent, Washington: “Leveraging Artemis for Mars Sample Return”
• Quantum Space, Rockville, Maryland: “Quantum Anchor Leg Mars Sample Return Study”
• Northrop Grumman, Elkton, Maryland: “High TRL MAV Propulsion Trades and Concept Design for MSR Rapid Mission Design”
• Whittinghill Aerospace, Camarillo, California: “A Rapid Design Study for the MSR Single Stage Mars Ascent Vehicle”
• Rocket Lab, Long Beach, California: “Rocket Lab Proposal for Rapid Mission Design Studies for Mars Sample Return” (added October 8, 2024)
• Several NASA centers working together (NASA declined to specify which ones)

The Bridenstine-led Mars Sample Return Strategy Review Team established yesterday will examine those options “for a complete mission design, which may be a composite of multiple studied design elements” and report “by the end of 2024.” Other members are:

• Greg Robinson, former program director, James Webb Space Telescope
• Lisa Pratt, former planetary protection officer, NASA
• Steve Battel, president, Battel Engineering; Professor of Practice, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
• Phil Christensen, regents professor, School of Earth and Space Exploration, Arizona State University, Tempe
• Eric Evans, director emeritus and fellow, MIT Lincoln Lab
• Jack Mustard, professor of Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Science, Brown University
• Maria Zuber, E. A. Griswold professor of Geophysics and presidential advisor for science and technology policy, MIT

A former Naval Aviator and member of Congress (R-OK), Bridenstine was NASA Administrator in the Trump Administration when the Artemis program to return humans to the Moon began. Now a consultant, he continues to champion returning astronauts to the Moon and other space exploration goals and is a member of Aerospace Corporation’s Board of Trustees and the Secure World Foundation’s Advisory Committee.

During his last year as Administrator, Bridenstine and then-Science Mission Directorate head Thomas Zurbuchen established the first Mars Sample Return (MSR) Independent Review Board when concerns began arising about the program’s cost, then estimated in the $2-3 billion range.

That first IRB in 2020, chaired by former Orbital ATK president David Thompson, strongly supported MSR, but concluded it was too ambitious as designed and recommended pushing out the launch dates and increasing the cost estimate.

NASA and ESA changed the design — or “architecture” — but schedule and cost doubts continued. A second IRB was established in 2023. Chaired by former NASA Director of Mars Exploration (“Mars Czar”) Orlando Figueroa, the IRB-2’s results in September 2023 were even more troubling. The new design had a “near-zero” probability of meeting the launch schedule later this decade and would cost at least $8-9.6 billion and perhaps as much as $11 billion.

Nicky Fox, who succeeded Zurbuchen as head of SMD, set up an internal Mars Sample Return Independent Review Board Response Team (MIRT) to assess the IRB-2’s analysis. At the same time, it was becoming clear that NASA’s budget was about to come under some rather severe constraints as a result of the Fiscal Responsibility Act.

In April 2024, after a six-month assessment, she and Administrator Bill Nelson agreed with the IRB-2’s conclusions and decided an entirely new look is needed at how to get the Perseverance samples back to Earth affordably and in a timely manner. They issued a request for proposals to industry on April 15 for Rapid Mission Design Studies for Mars Sample Return, with replies due May 17. Most of the awards were made on June 7, with a 90-day deadline, but on October 7 Rocket Lab announced they were just added. NASA centers, JPL and APL also were invited to submit ideas.

Those are the ideas the Bridenstine team will examine. They’ll be able to call upon a NASA Analysis Team, also just established, that can provide programmatic input such as a cost and schedule assessment. The analysis team is led by David Mitchell, chief program management officer at NASA Headquarters. Mitchell and eight other NASA employees are joined by JPL chief engineer emeritus Rob Manning and the Smithsonian’s Under Secretary for Science and Research Ellen Stofan. Stofan is a former NASA chief scientist.

• David Mitchell, chief program management officer, NASA Headquarters
• John Aitchison, program business manager (acting), Mars Sample Return
• Brian Corb, program control/schedule analyst, NASA Headquarters
• Steve Creech, assistant deputy associate administrator for Technical, Moon to Mars Program Office, NASA Headquarters
• Mark Jacobs, senior systems engineer, NASA Headquarters
• Rob Manning, chief engineer emeritus, NASA JPL
• Mike Menzel, senior engineer, NASA Goddard
• Fernando Pellerano, senior advisor for Systems Engineering, NASA Goddard
• Ruth Siboni, chief of staff, Moon to Mars Program Office, NASA Headquarters
• Bryan Smith, director of Facilities, Test and Manufacturing, NASA Glenn
• Ellen Stofan, under secretary for Science and Research, Smithsonian