NASA Testing Mars Sample Return: Testing the Landing Gear for All Scenarios

August 10, 2023

The first leg of Mars Sample Return is underway, as the Perseverance rover collects rock cores and other Mars samples at its landing site, Jezero Crater. Meanwhile on Earth, mission teams are optimizing the designs of the follow-on spacecraft that would retrieve these rock samples and bring them to Earth.

In this series of tests, engineers drop a three-eighths-early-concept lander model of the Mars Sample Retrieval Lander onto a steel plate to simulate hitting a rock on touchdown. Engineers can apply what they observe during testing as they scale up the design. This lander would be the largest spacecraft yet sent to Mars. It would carry a rocket which contains the Mars sample tubes to be brought to Earth for detailed study.

Considered one of the highest priorities by the scientists in the Science and Astrobiology Decadal Survey 2023-2032, Mars Sample Return would be the first mission to return samples from another planet and provides the best and nearest opportunity to reveal the evolution of planets, life’s beginning in the solar system and the potential for ancient life. NASA is teaming with ESA (European Space Agency) on this important endeavor.

Animation is contributed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the European Space Agency, Goddard Space Flight Center, and Marshall Space Flight Center.