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WASHINGTON – NASA hopes to have a better understanding by this summer of potential commercial partnerships to support future scientific missions to Mars.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory issued a request for proposals January 29 for “commercial services studies” for future robotic mission concepts to Mars. The studies, worth $200,000 or $300,000, would take place over 12 weeks.
The studies aim 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 the Mars orbit, services to provide high-resolution images of the Martian surface and communications relay services between Mars and Earth.
The studies are related to a draft strategy for future exploration of Mars that NASA launched almost a year ago. That “Explore 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 addition to conventional NASA-led missions.
“We’re really interested in seeing what the commercial sector can offer from a commercial standpoint,” said Eric Ianson, director of NASA’s Mars Exploration Program, during a presentation at the March 4 meeting of the Advisory Committee. of Planetary Sciences of the agency. “We intend to make multiple selections for these studies to evaluate the cost, feasibility and technological maturity of potential services on Mars.”
The proposals were due to be submitted to JPL on Feb. 27, and Ianson said the agency was evaluating them with the goal of making awards in April. That would allow the results of the studies to be published “sometime in the summer,” he said.
Some of the studies aim to examine how partnerships could address looming gaps in NASA’s infrastructure on Mars. “Our Mars relay network is aging and we are concerned about maintaining the ability to transmit data to Earth from the Martian surface,” he said. These services are currently provided by scientific orbiters that have been in service well beyond their primary missions.
The same goes for the high-resolution images currently provided by the HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which has been on Mars for almost two decades. “We would like to know what more the industry can do in this area.”
The studies would address not only the technical feasibility of those proposed missions but also their commercial viability. Ianson cited data relaying as a prime example of this. “Is there interest in the commercial sector in being able to provide services related to communications relay on Mars and, if so, how much would it cost, what would it look like and how would we develop that public-private partnership?”
The question of commercial viability was on the minds of committee members, who drew parallels with NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) effort. They questioned whether there would be enough non-NASA interest in such missions to make commercial partnerships work.
“Mars may have some similarities, it may have some differences” with CLPS, he said. One goal of the studies is to see how a public-private partnership could be structured “in a way that is beneficial to both parties.”
“I would be careful referring to it as ‘Mars CLPS,'” he added, noting that the studies will not cover landing payloads on Mars. “I think we’re a long way from that.”
“We’re not just talking about taking CLPS and moving it to Mars,” Lori Glaze, director of NASA’s planetary science division, said at the meeting. “It is a different business model. But the idea of a service approach is worth exploring.”
In parallel with commercial studies, NASA is working to refine the Exploring Mars Together strategy it implemented last year. That strategy has existed primarily in graphics and presentations, Ianson said. “We have received a lot of feedback from the community. We are incorporating them into the plan,” he said, and a formal written version of the strategy will be completed this summer.
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