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The American space agency NASA has appointed nine American companies to conduct a total of 12 concept studies on how commercial services can be applied to enable scientific missions to Mars. Each grantee will receive between $200,000 and $300,000 to prepare a detailed report on potential services, including payload delivery, communications relay, surface imaging and payload transport, that could support future missions to the ‘Red Planet’ to support.
The companies were selected from those that responded to a Jan. 29 request for U.S. industry to submit proposals. NASA’s Mars Exploration Program has issued the call for proposals to establish a new paradigm for missions to Mars with the potential to achieve high-priority science goals. Many of the selected proposals aim to adapt existing projects currently focused on the Moon and Earth to applications on Mars. They include “space tugs” to take other spacecraft to Mars, spacecraft for scientific instruments and cameras, and telecommunications relays. The concepts being sought are intended to support a broad strategy of partnerships between government, industry and international partners to enable frequent, lower-cost missions to Mars over the next 20 years.
“We are in an exciting new era of space exploration, with rapid growth in commercial interest and opportunities,” said Eric Ianson, director of NASA’s Mars Exploration Program. “Now is the right time for NASA to explore how public-private partnerships can support science on Mars in the coming decades.” The selected Mars Exploration Commercial Services studies are divided into four categories:
Small payload delivery and hosting services
- Lockheed Martin Corporation
- Impulse Space, Inc.
- Firefly Aerospace
Large payload delivery and hosting services
- United Launch Alliances
- Blue Origin
- Astrobotic Technology, Inc.
Mars surface imaging services
- Albedo Space Corporation
- Redwire Space, Inc.
- Astrobotic Technology, Inc.
Next generation relay services
- SpaceX
- Lockheed Martin Corporation
- Blue Origin
The studies, which will last 12 weeks, are scheduled to be completed in August and a summary of the study will be released later this year. These studies may lead to future requests for proposals, but do not constitute a commitment to NASA. The space agency is simultaneously seeking separate proposals from industry for the Mars Sample Return campaign, which would bring samples collected by the agency’s Perseverance rover to Earth where they can be studied with laboratory equipment that is too large and complex is to take with you to Mars. The industrial MSR studies are completely separate from the commercial MEP studies. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California manages the Mars Exploration Program on behalf of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The goal of the program is to deliver a continuous flow of scientific information and discoveries through a carefully selected series of robotic orbiters, landing rockets and mobile laboratories interconnected by a high-bandwidth communications network between Mars and Earth. Scientific data and associated information for all Mars Exploration Program missions are archived in the NASA Planetary Data System.
Source: NASA
