NASA desires a less expensive Mars Pattern Return—Boeing proposes most costly rocket

Enlarge / The House Launch System rocket lifts off on the Artemis I mission. (credit score: NASA/Invoice Ingalls)

NASA is on the lookout for methods to get rock samples again from Mars for lower than the $11 billion the company would wish below its personal plan, so final month, officers put out a name to trade to suggest concepts.

Boeing is the primary firm to launch particulars about how it could try a Mars Pattern Return mission. Its examine entails a single flight of the House Launch System (SLS) rocket, the tremendous heavy-lift launcher designed to ship astronauts to the Moon on NASA’s Artemis missions.

Jim Inexperienced, NASA’s former chief scientist and longtime head of the company’s planetary science division, introduced Boeing’s idea Wednesday on the People to Mars summit, an annual occasion sponsored primarily by conventional area firms. Boeing is the lead contractor for the SLS core stage and higher stage and has pitched the SLS, primarily a crew launch car, as a rocket for army satellites and deep area probes.