The UK scientist who is spearheading the Beagle 2 Mars lander mission - to be launched in 2003 - has proposed a Mars mission in 2009 aimed at returning Martian rock samples to Earth.
Speaking to scientists at the Royal Society in London, Prof Colin Pillinger of the UK Open University said he hoped to get the backing of the European Space Agency (ESA) which is providing funding for Beagle 2, scheduled to fly piggyback to Mars with the ESA Mars Express orbiter.
Pillinger believes that such a sample return mission could be flown at a cost of $200 million to $600 million, compared with the $1 billion which NASA is estimating for a similar mission.
The NASA-led sample return mission, originally scheduled for 2005, has been pushed back to 2012 pending a technical reappraisal after the loss of the Mars Climate Orbiter and Mars Polar Lander in 1999.
According to Pillinger, the UK-led sampler mission would fly to Mars with an orbiter and make an airbag-assisted soft landing similar to that planned for Beagle 2. He says a 60kg (130lb) probe would then drill about 1m (3ft) into the planet surface, collect up to 290kg of soil, place it in a canister and take off and rendezvous with the orbiter.
The spacecraft would remain in orbit for about two years before the right launch window to fly out of Martian orbit en route to the Earth.
Source: Flight International
