Questions tagged [sample-return]
Mission to some extraterrestrial object which results in return of materials to Earth for further examination.
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Does Chang'e 6 try to avoid sampling contaminated soil?
Watching this amazing video of Chang'e 6 taking samples from the Apollo Crater on the far side of the Moon, I was struck by the proximity of the sample channels to the lander. It's understandable ...
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Would a ice core samples taken on the Moon provide us with information about the past that we cannot easily obtain in other ways?
This article on NASA's website describes 10 things we’ve learned about Earth by studying the Moon, including the makeup of a newborn Earth and potential clues to how life began on Earth. The ...
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Why not bring an extra rover with an ExoMars drill unit to Jezero to have a far better chance to get biosignatures for the sample return mission?
In an interview in the recent article Mars Has So Much Radiation, Any Signs of Life Would Be Buried Six Feet Under physicist Alexander Pavlov of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center tells that he and ...
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Would planetary quarantine have to be used for asteroid mining missions?
Currently, sample return missions have to follow very delicate procedures to move the sample to the return vehicle. This is incredibly complicated and may explain why so few missions have launched.
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Is Perseverance going to keep carrying those samples around or cache them? I don't really understand the plan
IFLScience's Perseverance's Latest Mars Rock Sample Contains Curious "Greenish" Mineral begins:
Having long broken its record of firsts on Mars, the Perseverance rover, still pootling ...
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Why did Luna 16 go to the Moon at night? (Extreme cold vs robotic sampling & launch back to Earth)
While landing on the Sun at night has obvious advantages1 I'm curious why Luna 16 landed on the Moon at night. It was a complex mission involving robotic sample retrieval and a sample return launch ...
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Are there plans to return empty sample containers as an experimental control?
The Perseverance rover contains 43 sample tubes for collecting Martian soil and rock samples that will eventually be returned to Earth. The tubes have been extensively cleaned, so their contents ...
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Are the Perseverance core samples extracted from the drill bit before being stored?
Among other tasks, the Perseverance rover will drill core samples of rocks, which are then stored in sample tubes for their return to Earth.
Are the core samples removed from the drill bit before ...
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Lunar sample return cost per kg - Apollo vs Luna vs Chang'e
Lunar samples (rocks, soil etc.) were returned by US Apollo program, Russian Luna and Chinese Chang'e. How does the cost per kg of the samples compare among these missions? Who got it the cheapest per ...
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Why does the Perseverance Rover do sample caching?
As glad as I am that Perseverance's landing was successful, I'm a bit confused as to why there appears to be so little science equipment aboard the rover (by volume) and why the mission seems to be ...
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Perseverance individual sample collection post-mission; what stops them from blowing away or getting covered and hidden by dust?
I have been seeing videos that the plan after Perseverance is done collecting samples to distribute them in 'strategic' locations around Mars for another rover to drive around and pick up later. Why ...
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Minimum delta V required to return a piece of metallic asteroid 16 Psyche to Earth?
Suppose somebody sent a rover to Psyche 16 and found massive concentrated deposits of platinum-group metals near the surface, and turned it into a 10 ton sphere of platinum/iridium/osmium/gold alloy ...
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What skipped test on Genesis would have detected the backwards-inserted accelerometer which didn't deploy the parachute?
What precautions are planned to prevent samples returned from Mars crashing and releasing organisms on Earth? and this answer to Why would bringing samples from Mars back to Earth be a “civilization-...
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Actual mass of Chang'e 5 samples
What is the actual mass of the sample retrieved by Chang'e 5?
Wikipedia says:
with an expected return to Earth around 16 December 2020. Chang'e 5 will be China's first sample return mission, aiming ...
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Actual mass of Hayabusa 2 samples in 2020?
Similar to Actual mass of Hayabusa samples in 2010?, but about the recent mission.
What is the actual mass of the samples retrieved by Hayabusa 2?
The most detailed information I was able to find is:
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Have lasers ever been used to track laser-reflective parachute cloth for spaceflight missions? And what is it by the way?
In the JAXA PDF Hayabusa2 Information Fact Sheet (Ver. 2. 3, 2018. 07. 05, found here) on slide/page number 53 there is a diagram labeled Re-entry sequence overview and in the top right corner is ...
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From interplanetary space to the Australian Outback, how will Hayabusa2's return capsule be tracked? Desert Fireball Network perhaps?
Wired.com's For the Second Time Ever, an Asteroid Sample Returns to Earth says that "the sample return capsule from Hayabusa2" will land "under parachute in the Australian outback" ...
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What will happen to Chang’e 5 orbiter?
What will happen to the Chang’e 5 orbiter which will return the collected samples to earth? Will it burn up in the atmosphere like Hayabusa, or is an extented mission planned?
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How large an asteroid sample does hayabusa2 have?
As the title says, is it known how big, or massive, hayabusa2's sample is, due for Earth touchdown on 6th December?
I have tried some basic internet research but found nothing on the anticipated ...
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Could the uncertain mass of the OSIRIS-REx sample affect the trajectory of the return capsule?
It appears that so much material was collected by OSIRIS-REx from the asteroid Bennu, that the cover of the collection head won't close, and some of the sample is floating away.
In reviewing these ...
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Thrown-together $200 million mission to asteroid 2020 SO; check out or nudge to longer-lasting mini-moon orbit
This tweet says in part:
Earth's potential new minimoon, 2020 SO may be the Surveyor 2 Centaur rocket body, launched in September 1966. Integrating backwards shows 2020 SO2 to also be orbiting Earth ...
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Is lunar sample return comercially viable for a private company?
Moon samples like rocks and dust are highly valuable and sought after and impossible to get legally as a private individual, because of the fact that USA owns all of the samples in existence, from the ...
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Why use a Mars orbital Earth return vehicle for sample return?
NASA's plan is to use two separate missions to bring home the drill core samples that the Perseverance rover will take. The samples will in plan be picked up by a landed mission and launched to Mars ...
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Could the SS520 be used to return a payload from Mars to Earth?
The Japanese SS520-5 nanosat launcher has a payload of 5kg or so to LEO on an all solid fuel rocket with a total mass of about 2.6 tons. To reach LEO its delta-V totalled over all three stages must be ...
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Has a suborbital rendezvous ever been mentioned in a serious mission proposal/study? [duplicate]
This is an odd one that's been in the back of my head for a while. Consider the LOR architecture of the Apollo missions. To return to earth from the lunar surface, it is most mass-efficient to have ...
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Obtaining Europa's samples from Callisto. Possible to identify them? Worthwhile?
A lot has been discussed about the possibility of panspermia between Earth and Mars, and how compact systems such as Trappist-1 can be more prone to that.
Here on Earth, we have identified numerous ...
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If Elon Musk wanted to bring back some Martian soil, would US permission be required?
A scenario occurred to me recently where the Chinese space program decided to go all-in on Mars sample return, and their schedule was such that it would happen before the NASA/ESA mission was ...
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Mars Sample Return Earth Return Orbiter -- which propulsion system for what?
Many sources (eg this one) show the Mars Sample Return Earth Return Orbiter with both ion and chemical propulsion, and also state that it will be launched on an Ariane 6, but I can't find a clear ...
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Will surface samples from Mars orbit the planet in a spherical capsule until captured?
The abstract of the interesting 2001 NASA JPL paper Covering a Sphere with Retroreflectors says:
Abstract- One of the future missions for Mars involves returning a soil sample from the Martian ...
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Mars 2020: What are the advantages of doing two missions to return samples?
The Mars 2020 plans to create a cache with samples for a future mission to grab and bring back. What are the advantages of doing one mission to create the cache and one mission to bring the cache back ...
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Delta-v penalty for stopping in a distant Earth orbit versus using atmospheric reentry for braking and returning to Earth from Mars?
Comments below this answer to What precautions are planned to prevent an accident or anomaly from releasing Martians into Earth's environment? say:
Seems to me like a high earth orbit lab might be a ...
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What precautions are planned to prevent samples returned from Mars crashing and releasing organisms into Earth's environment?
Bias disclaimer: I think that returning samples from Mars to Earth at a point in time where we also suspect there is a chance that there is microbial life on Mars is ill-advised and arrogant. We are ...
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Are there (detailed) images or diagrams of the rotating drill carousel and the small robotic arm which are housed in the belly of Perseverance?
The sample handling page at the Mars 2020 mission site shows us the rover with at its front a circle that probably contains the rotating drill carousel ?
However it states that the belly of the rover ...
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Most likely future sample return missions?
Please bear in mind I have very little space/astronomy knowledge with any comments or answers but I am curious and quite keen to learn.
Aside from Mars itself as that is such a likely candidate, what ...
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Why is tantalum being used for the Hayabusa bullets?
The Hayabusa 2 probe is firing tantalum bullets at the asteroid Ryugu to knock off material that can be sampled. Why was tantalum chosen? That’s a pretty obscure element and I would assume rather rare....
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How exactly does this Apollo astronaut's tool work? What was it called?
The BBC News article Apollo in 50 numbers: Weights and Measures shows the following photo with the caption:
The astronauts brought back more than 360kg (790lb) of Moon rocks for study on Earth (...
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Explanation of single-burn trajectories from Lunar surface to Earth surface
I learned of the fine book Soviet Robots in the Solar System from this excellent answer. One chapter in it describes how the Soviets had extreme mass limitations on their lunar sample return vehicle ...
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How did the Luna spacecraft collect samples of the moon and containerize them for return to Earth?
The Wikipedia page Sample-return mission and this answer list Luna 16, 20 and 24 missions as each bringing back of the order of 100 grams of lunar material to Earth, but their Wikipedia pages don't ...
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Does NASA still plan for the Mars Ascent Vehicle to burn wax from the surface to orbit?
The NASA news item From Pedicures to the Peregrine Rocket, Paraffin Wax Proves Its Worth says:
The paraffin-based fuel also works under challenging environmental conditions, like the very low ...
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How to achieve escape velocity from Ceres?
If I am interested in a sample return mission to Ceres using a similar propulsion technology package to Dawn, what kinds of additional propulsion would be required to land and then return?
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Are rovers useful on low gravity, low atmosphere bodies?
Are rovers useful for exploring low atmosphere, low gravity objects? Are there more appropriate exploratory vehicles being proposed?
If I am interested in taking geological samples from a region ...
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Is there really moon rock in this cathedral window? If so, how, and from where on the Moon?
This Tweet by NASA Space Flight Editor Ian Atkinson says:
Some pictures from the Cathedral before the event starts, they have a table set up with artifacts from Apollo 8, including the flown flight ...
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Actual mass of Hayabusa samples in 2010?
Whatever I read I find Hayavusa brought some microscopic particles.
But what was the mass of the sample?
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Why does NASA use Nitrogen storage for lunar regolith?
I asked this question earlier about how moon dust was regulated and got an answer stating that:
Eighty-three percent of that material remains unexamined in nitrogen
storage at NASA's Johnson ...
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How much total lunar mass remains viable for analysis here on Earth?
I know that samples of lunar regolith were taken on many missions to and from the moon, but I also know that these rocks aren't common and are being used for analysis purposes. According to this NASA ...
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How did the Russians get moon rocks?
I've read somewhere that the Russians have moon rocks. How did they get them?
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Why would bringing samples from Mars back to Earth be a "civilization-level changing capability"?
The Space News article NASA continues Mars sample return mission studies
Among those planned missions is Mars sample return, a multi-mission architecture that involves collecting samples of Martian ...
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What is the deepest we have penetrated a terrestrial body other than Earth?
Curiosity drills 6.4 cm (2.5 inch) holes on Mars. Comet harpoons have been proposed for future space probes. There are a number of ways in which we can penetrate the surface of terrestrial bodies, but ...
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Who was the first person to touch the moon rocks?
This might be a stupid question, but I can't find and don't know the answer:
Everyone knows that Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin were the first men to land on/ walk on the moon. But were they ...
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Could there be any use with importing vacuum from space to Earth?
Space exploration pessimists say that there's nothing to import from space to Earth. So why not begin with doing exactly that?! :-)
It's commonly claimed that the vacuum of space is harder (emptier) ...
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