Rocket Lab Mars Sample Return Mission Proposal

[TheRadicalModerate]

The Escapade spacecraft are using Ariannespace supplied bipropellant engine 318 ISP & 397N. Pressure fed?
Not Hypercurie that I assumed.

I think those are probably post deployment motors.  Remember that there are two separate birds in Escapade, both of them deployed from the Photon Explorer, which uses either Curies or HyperCuries.  I'd guess the latter, but I don't know.

[trimeta]

From SpaceNews' article on the Mars Sample Return decision process:

The MSR-SR will evaluate all 12 studies, but need not recommend a specific one as the best path forward for MSR. “It doesn’t necessarily have to be one of the proposed architectures. It may be that we learn things from all of the architectures,” he said. “They take those things, pieces of them, and say this is what we think the agency ought to be doing going forward.”

The goal of the review is to provide that recommendation to agency leadership, including Administrator Bill Nelson, some time in December. “What we’re looking for is an architecture that gives us the highest likelihood of returning samples to Earth before 2040 and, if possible, for less than $11 billion,” Gramling said.

Which does go along with what I suggested earlier, that although Rocket Lab is proposing a complete, end-to-end solution, they may not be too upset if NASA decided to create separate bids for each component, and they subsequently win some but not all of those bids.

[edzieba]

The Escapade spacecraft are using Ariannespace supplied bipropellant engine 318 ISP & 397N. Pressure fed?
Not Hypercurie that I assumed.

I think those are probably post deployment motors.  Remember that there are two separate birds in Escapade, both of them deployed from the Photon Explorer, which uses either Curies or HyperCuries.  I'd guess the latter, but I don't know.

They are not 'deployed' from Photon, Photon forms the spacecraft bus for both Blue and Gold.
From Rocket Lab's Cristophe Mandy:

The main propulsion engine is the S400-12 Biprop Thruster from Arianespace, which uses a combination of monomethylhydrazine (MMH) and dinitrogen tetroxide (NTO). Mandy said they weighed a number of factors when it came to choosing which components to build and which to procure, like the engines.

“We looked at all the different options for engines that could get us [to Mars]. Rocket Lab has its own engines. We are more interested in mission success than anything else,” Mandy said. “There are these high heritage, very stable, long-duration mission engines that came out of other companies and we just picked one of those.”

[trimeta]

Rocket Lab has uploaded a new webpage outlining their Mars Sample Return mission plan, including renders of the various spacecraft involved. Notably, this version of the proposal includes three Neutron launches, one carrying a "Mars Telecommunications Orbiter." Why they can't use existing Mars orbiters, I don't know.

https://www.rocketlabusa.com/missions/mars-sample-return/

Edit: Some quick observations from the renders: it appears that their Mars Lander Vehicle uses eight smaller engines, while the Mars Ascent Vehicle uses one larger engine. If I didn't know better, I'd say the smaller engines are Curies and the larger one is a HyperCurie, but I suspect someone will come along shortly and tell me the thrusts would make no sense using those engines, so it's probably just what they had 3D models of lying around.

[Steven Pietrobon]

Looks like RocketLab provided an all-RocketLab solution. The RocketLab Mars Telecommunication Orbiter (MTO) is not needed as existing satellites can provide this task. The RocketLab Earth Return Orbiter (ERO) is also not needed, as ESA is providing this task.

[trimeta]

Looks like RocketLab provided an all-RocketLab solution. The RocketLab Mars Telecommunication Orbiter (MTO) is not needed as existing satellites can provide this task. The RocketLab Earth Return Orbiter (ERO) is also not needed, as ESA is providing this task.

One does have to wonder how much of the budget is allocated for the ESA's ERO. There's probably a reason that even the "option 2" proposal which uses Starship as a lander costs at minimum $5.8B.

[Steven Pietrobon]

One does have to wonder how much of the budget is allocated for the ESA's ERO. There's probably a reason that even the "option 2" proposal which uses Starship as a lander costs at minimum $5.8B.

€491M ($510M) to design and build the ESA ERO. Launch is probably another $100M.

https://europeanspaceflight.com/esa-mars-earth-return-orbiter-passes-key-milestone/

"Airbus Defence and Space was awarded the €491 million contract to design and build the orbiter back in October 2020."

[Galactic Penguin SST]

Rocket Lab has uploaded a new webpage outlining their Mars Sample Return mission plan, including renders of the various spacecraft involved. Notably, this version of the proposal includes three Neutron launches, one carrying a "Mars Telecommunications Orbiter." Why they can't use existing Mars orbiters, I don't know.

https://www.rocketlabusa.com/missions/mars-sample-return/

Edit: Some quick observations from the renders: it appears that their Mars Lander Vehicle uses eight smaller engines, while the Mars Ascent Vehicle uses one larger engine. If I didn't know better, I'd say the smaller engines are Curies and the larger one is a HyperCurie, but I suspect someone will come along shortly and tell me the thrusts would make no sense using those engines, so it's probably just what they had 3D models of lying around.

And they now have officially tweeted it out:

https://twitter.com/RocketLab/status/1876878068918489409

We can wait another year, or we can get started now.

Our Mars Sample Return architecture will put Martian samples in the hands of scientists faster and more affordably. Less than $4 billion, with samples returned as early as 2031.

This is not our first encounter with the Red Planet. The orbiters, rovers, landers, and helicopters of Mars all bear Rocket Lab’s fingerprints. We can deliver MSR mission success too.

More: http://rocketlabusa.com/missions/mars-sample-return/

Also note Peter Beck's response to NASA's announcement yesterday:

https://twitter.com/Peter_J_Beck/status/1876834824100401519

Or…a better 3rd option- Rocket Lab does it for billions less and years earlier using our proposed architecture.

[FutureSpaceTourist]

Images from Rocket Lab flickr

[StarryKnight]

I didn't think ESA's contribution (design, build, launch, and operation of the ERO) was part of NASA's budget. If so, then having Rocket Lab provide this does not save NASA any money. But perhaps Rocket Lab included this because they think they can save schedule.

I agree with others that the relay satellite's function can be met with existing assets. NASA will need this type of mission in the future. But it shouldn't be part of the MSR mission.

Providing solar arrays for Perseverance's cruise stage and Ingenuity is a bit of a stretch for claiming Mars mission heritage. But they did build the yet to be launched Escapade spacecraft, which hopefully gives them more experience by the time MSR is ready for launch.

[TrevorMonty]

All latest mission plans are relying on Perservance to live long enough to deliver samples to lander. Original mission design live was 2 years, NASA now need it to last 10-15yrs.

[electric]

With NASA stating hat the commercial option for the sample return costs 5.8 to 7 billions, can we infer that the Rocket Lab proposal is no longer considered for this mission? Or would the total costs to NASA somehow still reach 5.8 billions with the Rocket Lab part amounting to 4 billions?

[deltaV]

With NASA stating hat the commercial option for the sample return costs 5.8 to 7 billions, can we infer that the Rocket Lab proposal is no longer considered for this mission? Or would the total costs to NASA somehow still reach 5.8 billions with the Rocket Lab part amounting to 4 billions?

The recent MSR press conference implies that NASA decided to continue using traditional NASA-owned hardware for Mars surface operations and Mars ascent. This decision appears to have implicitly rejected Rocket Lab's proposal. NASA hasn't said why it made this decision so it's hard to say if NASA had good reasons to do so.

[edzieba]

The RocketLab Earth Return Orbiter (ERO) is also not needed, as ESA is providing this task.

Depends on mission architecture.
e.g. in the current PoR, the OS has to handle "survive Earth impact" duties on its own, the mass of which drives MAV mass (due to ascent mass requirement) which itself drives sample return lander mass.
If Rocket Lab's proposal has the OS only need to handle ascent and the encapsulation and sterilisation process in their ERO also adds the structure needed for surviving Earth impact (i.e. that structure is carried on the ERO instead of the SRL and never visits the Martian surface), then that propagates back to reduce MAV mass and SRL mass, but also means being incompatible with the ESA provided ERO and NASA provided CCRS.