Retrieving Martian soil samples is a major goal of space exploration

Sep 26, 2012 09:52 GMT  ·  By
This rendition shows a container carrying Martian samples, as it docks to a thurster that will deliver it back to Earth
   This rendition shows a container carrying Martian samples, as it docks to a thurster that will deliver it back to Earth

The American space agency has a well-thought-out strategy for the unmanned exploration of Mars, which apparently culminates in sending a sample-return mission to the surface of the Red Planet.

Such a spacecraft would be capable of landing at a designated location, scoop up a significant amount of dust, rock fragments and other similar debris, seal them in a container, and then fly all the way back to Earth, and deliver its cargo via parachuted capsule.

These are the conclusions of a new report released on September 25 by the NASA Mars Program Planning Group (MPPG). By early 2013, the space agency needs to formulate a series of plans based on these suggestions, Space reports.

“The first public release of what plans, you know, we definitively have would not be until the president presents that budget to Congress in February of 2013,” the associate administrator of the NASA Science Mission Directorate, John Grunsfeld, said yesterday.