The critical design review for the spacecraft’s platform was completed today with the involvement of European industry and NASA. A critical design review is one of the most important phases in any spaceflight project to make a spacecraft a reality. The Platform Critical Design Review (P-CDR) confirmed the performance, quality and reliability of the systems for this unprecedented mission to Mars.
The Earth Return Orbiter (ERO) is ESA’s major contribution to the Mars Sample Return campaign, a complex choreography of missions to bring martian rock, soil and atmospheric samples back to Earth.
Europe ready for Mars
The validation of the design and technical details represent a formal step towards the integration phase.
“European industry is ready for the next chapter. A robust design is the foundation for building, testing and assembling the hardware into a complete spacecraft,” says Tiago Loureiro, ERO’s project team leader.
The manufacturing and testing of the components of the spacecraft can now start to ensure the mission moves ahead for launch.
Suppliers from 11 European countries are on board for building the parts of an orbiter set for a full round-trip from Earth to Mars.
The challenges
NASA announced plans to update the Mars Sample Return programme last April with reduced complexity, risk and cost, including innovative designs and proven technology to return valuable samples from Mars to Earth.
ESA technical teams worked closely with their NASA counterparts to prepare for a revision of the programme.
“We have confirmed that the Earth Return Orbiter works for what was planned to do and more, whatever the alternatives are,” he adds.
The magic
The Earth Return Orbiter has the essential role of bringing samples from Mars back to Earth, but before doing that, it must find them in space.
ERO’s design demonstrated with flying colours that it is capable of capturing a basketball-sized capsule filled with samples collected by NASA’s Perseverance rover.
“This mission exemplifies European technological prowess at its finest. From a staggering distance of up to several hundred million kilometres, Earth-based teams will choreograph a complex orbital dance around Mars,” says Orson Sutherland, ESA’s Mars programme manager.
Their challenge: to locate a tiny capsule, maneuver into the precise orbit for rendezvous, and successfully capture it – all while operating remotely across the vast expanse of space.
ERO’s five-year mission to Mars and back will also see the spacecraft acting as a communication relay with rovers and landers on the surface.
European excellence
Teams in Europe rely on already mature technologies in autonomous navigation, rendezvous and docking, an expertise built up over decades from missions like the Automated Transfer Vehicle and Europe’s first mission to Jupiter with JUICE. Knowledge from the ExoMars Rosalind Franklin rover mission to the Red Planet is also feeding into it.
ERO will be the largest spacecraft ever built for interplanetary flight. Contributions come from France, Italy, Germany, UK, Spain, Switzerland, Norway, Denmark, Belgium, Romania, and The Netherlands.
Airbus Defence and Space has overall responsibility for the ERO mission to build the spacecraft and to conduct mission analysis from France, Germany and the UK. Thales Alenia Space will play an important role in assembling the spacecraft, developing the communication system and providing the orbit insertion module from its plant in Turin, Italy.
Discussion: 4 comments
I have a question, probably a common one:
How will you track the sample container? I have been quite fascinated about the whole program, but I am curious about the caputre process. Will the capsule carry any kind of transponders? Or will it be reflective? Or will you rely on the orbiter for the whole process?
I have also a question about contingencies: what if the capsule misses the capture? How will the orbiter catch the samples if they, for instance, bump into the ERO and start tumbling away?
Thank you very much.
Thanks for your interest in the Earth Return Orbiter’s mission, Juan. We’ve checked with the team and here are their answers:
“We will have telemetry from the rocket that launches the sample container into an orbit around Mars to have some information on its trajectory. This gives us a rough starting point.
Both the rocket and the container will be reflective indeed. The rocket will be larger and easier to spot with our especially developed camera. Find that, and we will find the container, which will remain totally passive, too.
In addition, the upper stage of the rocket will have a radio beacon that although not strictly needed, will help characterising its orbit
All optical and radio frequency data collected will be processed on Earth, and position estimates generated. Then the orbiter’s cameras will be pointed at where we believe the rocket and container are, and they will take a sequence of images. We will use a combination of techniques to process those images on ground to detect the location of the rocket and of the container.
Once we know where the container is, we will tell ERO how to fly to gently approach its position. When we get close enough, we will tell ERO to take over and fly the final stages autonomously.
This operation is only authorised if all parameters are within acceptable ranges. We will have done a lot of tests to make sure that ERO will not miss the container, nor bump into it. ERO will also be able to autonomously abort the capture in case any errors in the approach corridor occur, and we can try again later.”
Thank you for such a detailed answer. I didn’t expect such a good reply so quickly.
About the sample capture, I am truly impressed. It is a very impressive feat, the orbital rendez-vous, with such limited means and so far away from Earth. Truly a marvel of technology, and I am very happy to see that it is an European too! (Obviously with collaboration from other agencies and nations. We are, after all, in this together). What is especially intriguing for me is all the optical tracking. To find such a small object on orbit is a amazing feat. I wish you the best.
The capture protocols ar also well thought. Reliability is key, and the ESA is a professional agency.
Again, thank you very much for your answers. I really appreciate them.
I wish you the best in your endeavours, to Mars and Beyond. Good Luck!
Juan
P.S. Are the Mars Sample Return Missions and ExoMars missions related? If so, how?
Thanks 🙂
Hi,
Thank you for this detailed explanations!
Is there a risk mitigation foreseen for the approach of the orbiter to the orbiting samples (OS) in case the upper stage of the Mars ascent vehicle happens to be dangerously still close to the OS (and hence a potential threat to the orbiter)?
Thank you.