Goddard Engineering and Technology Directorate

Visiting Our Planetary Neighbor

Artist's depiction of the proposed Capture, Containment, and Return System, a NASA payload on the European Space Agency’s Earth Return Orbiter.
The Capture, Containment, and Return System is part of the multi-mission Mars Sample Return program being planned by NASA and European Space Agency (ESA). Credit: NASA/GSFC

A Field Trip to Mars

NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) are planning ways to bring the first samples of Mars material back to Earth for detailed study using The Capture Containment and Return System (CCRS). These first collected and returned samples could answer a key question: did life ever exist on Mars? This mission has multiple phases with the Mars Perseverance rover being the first leg of this international interplanetary relay team. Its job is to collect and cache samples on Mars through a Sample Return Lander that will land near or in Jezero Crater, bringing a small rocket on which the samples collected by Perseverance would be loaded. Two Ingenuity-like helicopters would provide a secondary capability to retrieve samples on the surface of Mars. Once the sample cache is launched off the Red Planet, another spacecraft would capture it in Mars orbit, and then bring it back to Earth safely and securely in the early to mid-2030’s.

Only by bringing the samples back can we truly answer the question by using NASA’s state-of-the-art resources providing foundations to the future generations who can dig deeper into these questions using techniques yet to be invented. The Electrical Engineering Division (EED) will lead the development of the Avionics, Harness, Robot Servo Control Electronics (RSCE) and other electrical components.  EED will also lead the Integration and Test (I&T) of various CCRS components.