NASA Tests Design for Mars Sample Return

Engineers successfully completed a series of drop tests at the Utah Test and Training Range. A test article of one potential design for the Mars Sample Return Earth entry vehicle was outfitted with sensors and dropped from a helicopter. The proposed mission plans to land samples collected by NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover in the UTTR. In addition to measuring the stress on the model, engineers acquired soil samples for further testing and studied impact craters. Before heading to Utah, the team ran simulations of the test at the Landing and Impact Research Facility at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. More than 50 years ago Apollo astronauts trained to bring samples back from the Moon at the facility now being used to test designs that could bring samples back from Mars.