WASHINGTON — NASA expects to have a better understanding by this summer of potential commercial partnerships to support future Mars science missions.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory issued a request for proposals Jan. 29 for “commercial service studies” for future robotic Mars mission concepts. The studies, with a value of $200,000 or $300,000, would be carried out over 12 weeks.
The studies are intended to examine four specific design reference missions to explore commercial opportunities to support Mars exploration: delivery of small payloads of up to 20 kilograms to Mars orbit, delivery of large payloads of up to 1,250 kilograms to Mars orbit, services to provide high-resolution imaging of the Martian surface and communications relay services between Mars and Earth.
The studies are linked to a draft strategy for future Mars exploration that NASA released nearly a year ago. That “Exploring Mars Together” strategy outlined future robotic missions that NASA would send to Mars after the Mars Sample Return program. That included, NASA said at the time, opportunities for commercial partnerships in additional to conventional NASA-led missions.
“We’re really interested to see what the commercial sector can provide from a commercial standpoint,” said Eric Ianson, director of NASA’s Mars Exploration Program, during a presentation at the March 4 meeting of the agency’s Planetary Science Advisory Committee. “We’re intending to make multiple selections for these studies to assess cost, feasibility and technological maturity of potential services at Mars.”
Proposals were due to JPL Feb. 27, and Ianson said that the agency was evaluating them with a goal of making awards in April. That would allow results of the studies to be published “some time in the summer,” he said.
Some of the studies are intended to examine how partnerships could address looming gaps in NASA’s Mars infrastructure. “Our Mars relay network…
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