NASA Robots May Grab Mars Rocks for Astronauts to Deliver Back to Earth
NASA Robots May Grab Mars Rocks for Astronauts to Deliver Back to Earth
One of the option calls for a Martian robotic rover to collect rocks on the red planet. Later, astronauts in a newly built spaceship would be used to pick them up from a cosmic delivery point somewhere between Earth and Mars and return them home.
The report gives the space agency several options with no specific timing for future missions and no decision is expected until next year. The new plan is needed because budget cuts earlier this year killed two future robotic flights.
The space agency has so far explored Mars with orbiters and robots, like the rover Curiosity that landed last month. The ultimate goal has been to get a robot to collect rocks and Martian soil to send to Earth for more detailed scientific examination.
Separately, NASA is working on new missions for astronauts to explore away from Earth, with an ultimate goal of sending them to Mars sometime in the 2030s.