Six California legislators sent a letter to NASA Administrator Bill Nelson last week objecting to NASA’s recent cuts to the Mars Sample Return Program, which aims to bring samples collected by the Mars rover Perseverance to Earth. did.
The letter was written by Representatives Judy Chu, LaFonza Butler, Mike Garcia, and Young Kim, as well as California State Senators Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla. In a letter, the six senators called NASA’s move “short-sighted and misguided,” arguing it would “cost hundreds of jobs and a decade of lost science.”The letter can be read in full here.
Lawmakers also mentioned the House appropriations bill that would provide funding for NASA. says::
The Committee supports continued funding for Mars sample return missions. The committee directed NASA to allocate at least $949.3 million for this mission. Pursuant to the results of the pending independent review committee, and given the existing architecture that is committed to returning samples safely to Earth, the Committee urges NASA to include a budget request for fiscal year 2025 at the latest. Directs to ensure that funding is included to complete the mission’s launch by 2030.
The Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission is the grand finale of Mars 2020 and the The lively Ingenuity Helicopter) to Mars in February 2021. Perseverance’s mission is simple. To investigate the area where river deltas flowed into vast Martian lakes billions of years ago. The rover has collected rock samples during its stay. scientists hope to solve An important astrobiological question is whether life has ever existed on other planets.
of mars sample return It would require a helicopter designed to retrieve the samples collected by Perseverance, a launcher designed to carry the samples into Mars orbit, a system to collect the samples in orbit, and of course a vehicle to transport the samples to Earth. is. orbit and reach the surface.
Perseverance completes sample storage early this year. Although the probe fulfills its role, (generally) No problem, the view from Earth is even more dire. During April, NASA establishes second review committee Oversee sample return and ensure it is done on time and within budget.
However, the review committee found the program’s cost and schedule to be unrealistic. Force NASA to reconsider How do we deliver precious Martian samples on a 31 million mile journey from the Martian world to our own? The program’s full lifecycle cost is currently estimated at between $8 billion and $11 billion, much higher than the previously anticipated program cost of $4.4 billion. According to Ars Technica.
early this month, the agency announced it was “resuming” work on the MSR program, citing the independent review committee’s findings. In a letter to NASA Administrator Nelson, California lawmakers said they were “embarrassed by NASA’s hasty decision,” which suggested cuts were needed before Congress completed its fiscal year 2024 appropriations process. “I am doing so,” he said. Lawmakers said in a letter that the NASA funding move violates Congress’ spending authority.
“If forced to operate at the unnecessarily low funding levels that NASA prematurely directed in its November 8 letter, Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) will miss its 2030 launch window and American companies will “If canceled, hundreds of high-skilled jobs in California would be lost,” the lawmakers wrote. “This talent is a national asset we cannot afford to lose, and if this unique and talented workforce is lost to the private sector, it will be nearly impossible to reassemble it.”
launch a window to mars Occurs approximately every 26 months, and missing out on the currently planned timeline for a Mars mission would be costly. How NASA proceeds will determine the timeline for human extraterrestrial exploration over the next decade, as well as insights into Mars’ ancient past.
more: Has NASA completed sending a conventional spacecraft to Mars?