Lockheed instructed to pick up soil from Mars: the commercial potential of the mission

The NASA space Agency has signed a contract with Lockheed Martin Corporation (LMT) to carry out an unusual mission to deliver soil from Mars to Earth. Lockheed has already received the first financial tranche and is creating an original system with commercial potential. NASA has been planning a mission called Mars Sample Return (MAV) for a long time. 

It involves sending a robot to Mars to deliver Martian samples to scientists who published unexpected mission details last week. During the MAV mission, a lander will land on the surface of Mars, which will take soil samples already collected by the Perseverance rover. This rover has been working on Mars for more than a year accumulated a certain number of pieces of samplers. At least some of these samples will have to be taken to Earth by a mission in the 2030s. 

There is no final version of the implementation of this task yet. However, it will use a small ESA rover, which will serve as a courier: it will travel from the MAV lander to the Perseverance rover. But perhaps Perseverance itself will be able to load the required samples onto the MAV module.

Technically, it is possible to create a manipulator that will extract samples from this compartment—the launch of the MAV no earlier than 2026. Lockheed Martin has received a contract worth $ 194 million to develop a rocket that will lift samples from the surface of Mars into space. In the orbit of Mars, the pieces will be captured by the ESA Earth Return Orbiter, after which they will go to Earth. 

The multi-stage mission is one of the most difficult in the history of space exploration. But the technologies developed for this mission may have significant long-term potential. In particular, the need to return substantial amounts of material from the surface of asteroids during mining in space will.