Possible cost-reduction possibilities for the NASA portions of MSR

[VSECOTSPE]

Oh really, so you're saying NASA just randomly picked the MSR proposals to fund without any validation at all?

Read what I wrote.  I wrote that one study among seven with a max value of $1.5 million and no follow-on downselect or funding against a multi-billion dollar mission that the program office is developing its own architecture for internally does not validate a Starship architecture for MSR.  In fact, being chosen for an architecture study under any circumstances does not validate the architecture being studied, by definition.

I did portray the situation factually and accurately,

No, with respect to your and Skran’s contention that NASA should now pursue a Starship architecture for MSR you wrote:

given NASA chose SpaceX to do a study of Starship MSR.

You’re wrong.  Being chosen for a study does not validate an architecture.

unlike someone who didn't even know NASA's cryo-refueling test failed on orbit then double down on his ignorance instead of admitting mistake.

I don’t know what RRM3 has to do with the current discussion, but flight tests experience technical failures all the time and still provide valuable data, often enough to move on to the next step despite the technical failure.

Regardless, again, it’s not about validating your old posts (or mine).  It’s about accurately portraying the situation with respect to these industry studies for MSR.  If you need validation, seek it offline, not here.

[ulm_atms]

thespacecow, your arguments aren't completely without merit, but VSECOTSPE has literately been inside the NASA bureaucratic machine for a long time.  VSECOTSPE is not wrong and you should be aware enough that when you start replying sarcastically like above, you are the one losing credit.  I personally thank VSECOTSPE for the posts.  Been nice having someone from the inside explain some things that make no sense from the outside.  It is appreciated by this member anyways.

NASA studies a lot of things all the time but it doesn't go anywhere.  SS for MSR may, who knows, but basically stating they are going with SS due to the study is incorrect exactly as VSECOTSPE explained.

[thespacecow]

Oh really, so you're saying NASA just randomly picked the MSR proposals to fund without any validation at all?

Read what I wrote.  I wrote that one study among seven with a max value of $1.5 million and no follow-on downselect or funding against a multi-billion dollar mission that the program office is developing its own architecture for internally does not validate a Starship architecture for MSR.  In fact, being chosen for an architecture study under any circumstances does not validate the architecture being studied, by definition.

Actually what you wrote is "it doesn’t validate anything", which implies NASA did not do any work when selecting Starship for MSR, which is categorically false. As the source selection document stated, each proposal was evaluated by a panel of 10 peer reviewers with scientific and technical expertise, then Program Officer made recommendations based evaluation result and programmatic/budget considerations, and Selection Official made the final pick.

So by definition some validation is done on the architecture.

I did portray the situation factually and accurately,

No, with respect to your and Skran’s contention that NASA should now pursue a Starship architecture for MSR you wrote:

given NASA chose SpaceX to do a study of Starship MSR.

You’re wrong.  Being chosen for a study does not validate an architecture.

Yes, it does to some extent, since it's obvious that NASA wouldn't pick proposals randomly.

If you need validation, seek it offline, not here.

Hey, I thought this is not about me, funny that in the end you still made it about me.

[thespacecow]

thespacecow, your arguments aren't completely without merit, but VSECOTSPE has literately been inside the NASA bureaucratic machine for a long time.  VSECOTSPE is not wrong

That's just argument from authority, a logical fallacy.

As I said before in this thread: "If Elon Musk proved anything, it's that to do ground breaking work in the space industry, you have to have a healthy skepticism of authority and experts. The same is true if you want to make reasonable future predictions in a world where SpaceX exists.

Do you not remember Charles Bolden saying FH is a paper rocket while SLS is real? Do you not remember Ariane exec saying reusability is a dream? Do you not remember Jim losing bet against SpaceX even though he has insider info from his work? Didn't you guys claim in this very thread that Starship is not suitable for MSR?"

NASA studies a lot of things all the time but it doesn't go anywhere.  SS for MSR may, who knows, but basically stating they are going with SS due to the study is incorrect exactly as VSECOTSPE explained.

I never stated that NASA will 100% go with Starship for MSR, let alone basing it on a study. In fact I explicitly stated earlier in this thread that "Of course this doesn't mean NASA will pick Starship for MSR in 2025, that's far from assured. "

What I'm arguing is that "What's wrong is people still claiming Starship is unsuitable for MSR even after NASA's move.", suitability for the mission is very much a criteria when NASA was selecting the proposal.

I hope I don't need to explain the difference between being suitable for a mission and will 100% be selected for the mission. e.g. many people on this forum think Starship and other commercial heavy lift is suitable for replacing SLS, but it doesn't mean NASA will actually select them to replace SLS.

[VSECOTSPE]

So by definition some validation is done on the architecture.

SpaceX submitted a proposal to fund a study to examine an MSR architecture.  SpaceX did not submit the architecture.  By definition, NASA cannot validate (or not) SpaceX’s MSR architecture until after it has been studies and submitted by SpaceX.

Yes, it does to some extent, since it's obvious that NASA wouldn't pick proposals randomly.

NASA picked a proposal to study an MSR architecture from SpaceX.  NASA did not pick an MSR architecture from SpaceX.  In fact, there is no path for NASA to pick (as in select, fund, and develop) an MSR architecture from SpaceX even after SpaceX submits one.

[Kaputnik]

Bumped in to a NASA engineer today... he reckons the effort to save MSR will include switching to sky crane for landing, and deletion of any fetch choppers. Plan will be to use Perseverance.

[Will O Wisp]

NASA picked a proposal to study an MSR architecture from SpaceX.  NASA did not pick an MSR architecture from SpaceX.  In fact, there is no path for NASA to pick (as in select, fund, and develop) an MSR architecture from SpaceX even after SpaceX submits one.

Bluntly, it feels like CYA. NASA must not think there's really a viable backup to the stripped down, skycrane based MSR. This is the sort of thing you do when you have to cancel a major program, to prove other options weren't viable.

[TrevorMonty]

NASA has now added Rocket Lab to list of companies being paid to flesh out their proposals for MSR.

https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=46744.msg2628619#msg2628619

Selection will come down to price, how realistic proposal is ie company can deliver on time and budget, time.

If NASA are relying on Perseverance to deliver samples to MAV then time isn't on their side. We don't know how long Perseverance will last. If it dies before a mission is launched then they will have to add extra lander with rovers or helicopters to retrieve samples.
 

[deltaV]

https://go.nasa.gov/RASMSR24 has a revised selections doc which includes:

On June 7, 2024, seven, proposals were selected for funding. One additional proposal was selected for funding on August 24, 2024.

The late awardee appears to be Rocket Lab. I don't know why/how RL got a late award but my best guess is they successfully appealed the rejection of a timely proposal. There's also a RL MSR thread (https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=61596). According to the abstract RL is planning less than $2B cost to NASA firm fixed price and samples home by Sept 2033 using two Neutron launches. The key part of the abstract:

Launched roughly 2 weeks apart, launch 1 sends the ERO to orbit Mars while launch 2 sends the MLV, inclusive of the MAV and a cruise stage, on a direct entry to Mars. Samples will be delivered to the MLV by Perseverance which will then be loaded into the MAV with a 7-dof sampling arm. After MAV ascent, the ERO rendezvous with the MAV for sterilization of the samples and transfer to the EES, followed by return to Earth.

EES probably stands for Earth Entry System (https://mars.nasa.gov/internal_resources/1306/). I don't know if the ERO in the abstract is ESA's ERO or a new RL ERO, but one clue that it's the latter is the fact that the ESA ERO was going to launch on Ariane 64 not Neutron. I don't know if "sterilization of the samples" means sterilizing the samples themselves, which would presumably reduce the science value, or just sterilizing the exterior of some container.

[deltaV]

I (still) think a commercial-style fixed-price multiple-winners contracting regime would work well for MSR. NASA's various commercial programs have had a high failure rate on the first flight (e.g. Starliner, several CLPS landers) so I would require successful flight tests of all systems that would likely destroy the samples or contaminate Earth if they fail, e.g. the Mars ascent vehicle and Earth reentry system, before risking the actual samples. Both the commercial crew and commercial cargo programs had some smaller warm-up contracts before the main contract; probably something similar with ~3 winners would make sense here before down-selecting later to 2 winners to actually do the job. One contractor would grab the backup cache of samples at Three Forks (which likely requires a small rover), the other would do the samples from Perseverance. Both contracts may also include an option to grab the other set of samples, which NASA could exercise if one contractor gets their samples successfully and the other contractor drops out.

Likely winners include SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Rocket Lab, who all have RASMSR contracts and experience with large fixed-price contracts.

[deadman1204]

I (still) think a commercial-style fixed-price multiple-winners contracting regime would work well for MSR. NASA's various commercial programs have had a high failure rate on the first flight (e.g. Starliner, several CLPS landers) so I would require successful flight tests of all systems that would likely destroy the samples or contaminate Earth if they fail, e.g. the Mars ascent vehicle and Earth reentry system, before risking the actual samples. Both the commercial crew and commercial cargo programs had some smaller warm-up contracts before the main contract; probably something similar with ~3 winners would make sense here before down-selecting later to 2 winners to actually do the job. One contractor would grab the backup cache of samples at Three Forks (which likely requires a small rover), the other would do the samples from Perseverance. Both contracts may also include an option to grab the other set of samples, which NASA could exercise if one contractor gets their samples successfully and the other contractor drops out.

Likely winners include SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Rocket Lab, who all have RASMSR contracts and experience with large fixed-price contracts.

multiple winners? There is only 1 cache to return.
Also, what makes it commercial? Slapping the word on? There is no such thing as commercial mars anything. Its 100% government funded. By the metrics people use to call things commercial, apollo was too. We just didn't use that word.

[Exastro]

I've been hoping that somebody will decide to bite off a Big Clean Lander:  Cat IVb-compliant, at least 6.5m in diameter, capable of landing 5t of payload.  Not only would this make MSR easy, it would serve as a bus for a flurry of cheap missions, which I believe will be needed to enable the decision to reclassify parts of the martian surface from Cat IV to Cat II, which is going to be needed before Starship landings can be licensed.

Would something based on Red Dragon make sense?  That approach might help the regular Dragon get the original propulsive landing developed as a side benefit.

[TheRadicalModerate]

I don't know if "sterilization of the samples" means sterilizing the samples themselves, which would presumably reduce the science value, or just sterilizing the exterior of some container.

The latter.

On the ERO, there's a module called the Containment, Capture, and Return System (CCRS), which includes the EES (you've got the acronym right, although "EEV" is used interchangeably), plus some fairly horrid machinery that plucks the OS (orbiting sample) out of LMO, where the MAV released it.  It then orients it properly, inserts it into the EES, and sterilizes the hatch through which it was inserted into the EES.

This hatch has been the source of a lot of heartburn.  It was originally going to be heat-sterilized, but nobody could keep the heat from soaking into the OS, which would indeed have changed the chemical composition of the samples.  Current plans are to UV-sterilize the area, but nobody can figure out how to test that it actually works, which is yet another source of schedule delay.

The EES is an impactor--no parachutes.  It's designed to absorb most of the shock of colliding with Utah, but the OS still has to preserve the integrity of the sample vials, which increases its mass.  The entire system turns out to be incredibly sensitive to OS mass, because tiny changes in it have large changes on MAV payload fraction, which in turn have even larger changes on the SRL landed mass--and dimensions.

That's why you'll see some proposals that look at reducing the number of samples, which sounds terrible but may be needed if somebody can't do a better job with the MAV.  Unsurprisingly, there are several of the RASMSR studies looking at the MAV.

PS:  Just because this thread is a bit stale, some handy references:

Sample Retrieval Lander and Earth Entry Vehicle

Mars Ascent Vehicle

Mars Independent Review Board Final Report (don't ask me why it's in Powerpoint)

The RASMSR document page

[deltaV]

I don't know if "sterilization of the samples" means sterilizing the samples themselves, which would presumably reduce the science value, or just sterilizing the exterior of some container.

The latter.

You're probably right, but I don't see a way to rule out the possibility that RL is proposing their own different version of the ERO that unlike ESA's ERO does sterilize the samples.

[TrevorMonty]

I don't know if "sterilization of the samples" means sterilizing the samples themselves, which would presumably reduce the science value, or just sterilizing the exterior of some container.

The latter.

You're probably right, but I don't see a way to rule out the possibility that RL is proposing their own different version of the ERO that unlike ESA's ERO does sterilize the samples.

Sounds like NASA ir ESA need to provide sterilization mechanism.

[deltaV]

I've been hoping that somebody will decide to bite off a Big Clean Lander:  Cat IVb-compliant, at least 6.5m in diameter, capable of landing 5t of payload.  Not only would this make MSR easy, it would serve as a bus for a flurry of cheap missions, which I believe will be needed to enable the decision to reclassify parts of the martian surface from Cat IV to Cat II, which is going to be needed before Starship landings can be licensed.

Would something based on Red Dragon make sense?  That approach might help the regular Dragon get the original propulsive landing developed as a side benefit.

Red Dragon would need a ton of new engineering. One noteworthy change is it would presumably need to launch in a fairing to avoid the same surface-exposed-to-Earth-microbes issue as Starship. There are lots of smaller changes, e.g. navigation, communications, bigger solar cells, colder environment, and so on. I suspect that all the Red Dragon changes would be harder than finding a way to make Starship satisfy planetary protection requirements. I don't know enough to definitively rule Red Dragon out, I'm just not seeing it as likely.

[TheRadicalModerate]

I've been hoping that somebody will decide to bite off a Big Clean Lander:  Cat IVb-compliant, at least 6.5m in diameter, capable of landing 5t of payload.  Not only would this make MSR easy, it would serve as a bus for a flurry of cheap missions, which I believe will be needed to enable the decision to reclassify parts of the martian surface from Cat IV to Cat II, which is going to be needed before Starship landings can be licensed.

Would something based on Red Dragon make sense?  That approach might help the regular Dragon get the original propulsive landing developed as a side benefit.

Red Dragon would need a ton of new engineering. One noteworthy change is it would presumably need to launch in a fairing to avoid the same surface-exposed-to-Earth-microbes issue as Starship. There are lots of smaller changes, e.g. navigation, communications, bigger solar cells, colder environment, and so on. I suspect that all the Red Dragon changes would be harder than finding a way to make Starship satisfy planetary protection requirements. I don't know enough to definitively rule Red Dragon out, I'm just not seeing it as likely.

I don't think that Red Dragon has a wide enough outer mould line to contain a MAV.  There might be something weird you could do by mounting the MAV completely vertically, but it is, as you say, a ton of engineering.

NASA is terrified of MSR development risk. Red Dragon might eliminate some of that, but you're still looking at at least some dimensional changes, and yes, you'd probably need to put it in a fairing.  An expendable Starship, which can blow the nose fairing off (no header tanks), might be pretty easy to adapt.  But I think NASA is still hoping that somebody's going to come up with a MAV performance improvement that'll fit in a Perseverance-sized form factor.

[deltaV]

multiple winners? There is only 1 cache to return.

There are two sets of samples, one set of 10 on the ground at the Three Forks Depot and one set still in Perseverance rover. According to the industry day slides, the Perseverance samples are of greater scientific value (perhaps because Perseverance has taken additional samples after the Three Forks Depot was created), but the Three Forks samples were selected so that either set would be scientifically valuable. The RASMSR program appears to be OK with returning either all 10 of the Three Forks samples or the 10 best Perseverance samples. So multiple winners each targeting a different set of samples seems viable.

Also, what makes it commercial? Slapping the word on? There is no such thing as commercial mars anything. Its 100% government funded. By the metrics people use to call things commercial, apollo was too. We just didn't use that word.

Fixed-price contracts, persistent competition, contractors care about more than one contract because they own intellectual property and other assets.

[thespacecow]

There is no such thing as commercial mars anything. Its 100% government funded.

Wrong, it's not 100% government funded. For one thing, SpaceX self funded Red Dragon and early Raptor/Starship R&D.

[Kaputnik]

I've been hoping that somebody will decide to bite off a Big Clean Lander:  Cat IVb-compliant, at least 6.5m in diameter, capable of landing 5t of payload.  Not only would this make MSR easy, it would serve as a bus for a flurry of cheap missions, which I believe will be needed to enable the decision to reclassify parts of the martian surface from Cat IV to Cat II, which is going to be needed before Starship landings can be licensed.

Would something based on Red Dragon make sense?  That approach might help the regular Dragon get the original propulsive landing developed as a side benefit.

Ha, you made me check the thread date.