The Mars Sample Return mission will be conducted by NASA and the European Space Agency. The mission will consist of a lander that will pick up the samples, an ascent vehicle that will send them to the surface, and an entry vehicle that will bring them back to earth. It will be the first time samples from Mars will be returned to Earth. New insights into the history of Mars and how it evolved to become what we see today are expected to be yielded by this research.
Transfer, ascent, transit, and re-entry are required to return these samples safely to Earth. The Earth Entry System is a disk-shaped vehicle that will return to Earth at the end of the mission. NASA engineers are working on shielding that will protect the vehicle from micrometeorites and space debris during transit back to Earth and during re-entry.
There are about 32,320 debris objects in Low Earth Orbit that are regularly tracked by satellites, according to the space debris office. There are pieces of satellites that can reach speeds of up to 25,265 km/h. A major collision hazard to robotic and crewed missions can be found at these speeds. Micrometeorites can travel up to 180,000 km/h.
Every human spaceflight program from the Space Shuttle and the International Space Station to the Artemis Program has been supported by a shield system currently being tested by NASA engineers. Bruno Sarli was the leader of the team and he was an engineer with NASA.
The lab uses a series of 2 stage light gas guns to accelerate objects to the point where they have the same impact speed as micrometeorites. The first stage uses gunpowder as a propellant, while the second stage pushes hydrogen gas into a tube to increase pressure inside the gun. Two 0.17-inch bore diameter guns, a 0.50-inch bore diameter gun, and a 1-inch diameter gun are included in the total number of guns.
The team used the lab's mid-sized 2-stage light gas gun that shoots in the.50 caliber range at speeds of over 8 km/s. The experiment took three days to set up, but only a single second to conduct. If one of the guns exploded, the entire building would be leveled. The experiment was monitored from a safe place.
Micrometeorites travel six to seven times faster in space than they do in real life. The team can use the slower rate to study how the material reacts to the energy. As the launch date of the Mars Sample Return mission approaches, the team will continue to run impact experiments and collect data on their shield design.
The Sample Retrieval Lander is one of the robotic elements in theMSR mission. NASA Langley and Ames Research Centers are working together to develop the EES with impact testing provided by the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.
One of the most ambitious campaigns in spaceflight history involves multiple missions, multiple launches, and multiple government agencies. If everything goes according to plan, the samples from Mars will be returned to Earth in 2033. Bringing these samples to Earth will allow scientists to study them using instruments that are too large and heavy to travel to Mars.
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