Rocket Lab selected to study Mars Sample Return

Today Rocket Lab announced NASA has chosen them to conduct a study on returning samples from the surface of Mars.

Rocket Lab is the most recent company selected by NASA to study Mars Sample Return. Earlier this year NASA selected ten other companies to study and craft proposals for various aspects of MSR, including industry giants like SpaceX, Blue Origin, Lockheed Martin, and Aerojet Rocketdyne.

Despite it's name, Rocket Lab is no stranger to spacecraft. They have worked on everything from their Photon Kickstage, their Pioneer reentry vehicle, the twin Mars probes for NASA's ESCAPADE mission, and much more. They also plan to develop and launch a spacecraft for the first ever private science mission to Venus to discover if possible life exists in it's clouds.

Here's what Rocket Lab founder and CEO Sir Peter Beck had to say about being selected to conduct a study for MSR:

“Retrieving samples from Mars is one of the most ambitious and scientifically important endeavors humanity has ever embarked upon. We’ve developed an innovative mission concept to make it happen affordably and on an accelerated schedule, Rocket Lab has been methodically implementing a strategy for cost-effective planetary science in recent years, making us uniquely suited to deliver a low cost, rapid Mars Sample Return. We’ve demonstrated this strategy by delivering a NASA mission to the Moon, enabling rendezvous and proximity operations in orbit, successfully re-entering a capsule from orbit to Earth, delivering two spacecraft to NASA for a Mars mission, and much more. We look forward to bringing our proven capabilities together to deliver a compelling, innovative mission solution that puts Mars rocks in the hands of scientists sooner.”

Whether or not Rocket Lab is ultimately selected for Mars Sample Return, it is clear that NASA is shifting gears towards a faster, more cost-effective approach for returning Mars samples to Earth, which bodes well for the future scientific exploration of the Red Planet, and by extension the Solar System.

What we learn from these samples could give us powerful insight into Mars' past, and if it was once host to life, which could have massive implications for the potential abundance of life in the Universe.