00:00It's been quite a while since we heard any new updates about getting samples from Mars back to
00:04Earth. So is that project still on? What's the latest news? And if so, what are the plans and
00:12when could we expect to see the samples? Let's find out. This is the space race. The last update
00:20we got about the Mars sample return mission was that NASA had partnered up with SpaceX to get the
00:25samples back to Earth using their Falcon Heavy rocket. That was back in November 2020. Now this
00:31was a big deal, because for the first time NASA was partnering up with a private company to do some
00:36science. Usually NASA either does all the work themselves or partners up with other government
00:42agencies like the ESA, the European Space Agency. But in this case, they went for a private company
00:48and it seemed like a great choice at the time. SpaceX already had a heavy lift rocket available,
00:54the Falcon Heavy, and plenty of experience launching stuff into deep space. And it all seemed to be
01:00going well until SpaceX crashed a Falcon 9 rocket shortly after launch. And then again just a few
01:07months later with another Falcon 9 explosion, this time destroying an expensive Israeli satellite that
01:13was supposed to be launched into space. To make matters worse, just days after the second Falcon 9
01:20failure, the United Launch Alliance, a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin,
01:26also failed to launch their Atlas FIV rocket. But NASA stayed with SpaceX anyway, which has turned out
01:33to be a good decision so far. Since then, SpaceX have not only fixed their Falcon 9 rocket, but now launch
01:41it almost every week without fail. And they've also launched their first Starship rocket and are working
01:47hard to fix the issues that caused that one to explode. More on that later. Meanwhile, the United
01:54Launch Alliance is still struggling to fix their Atlas V rocket, which has been grounded ever since that
01:59failure in December 2020. But NASA doesn't seem too concerned because they've got more options than just
02:06those two. In June of this year, for example, NASA announced that they would be able to use the
02:13Ariane 5 rocket by the European Space Agency to bring the sample home. The plan is for the European rocket to
02:20take a fetch rover to Mars, pick up the sample from Perseverance, and then head back to Earth with it. But the
02:26problem with that plan is that the earliest that an Ariane 5 rocket can launch is not until September 2027.
02:34Then it takes another two years to get the sample back to Earth. So according to that plan, we wouldn't get our hands on the
02:41sample until at least 2029. And if anything goes wrong along the way, that date will just slip further and further into the
02:49future. And we know how unreliable rockets can be. Take the James Webb Space Telescope, for example. It was supposed to launch in
02:572018, but thanks to engineering problems and delays, it didn't finally launch until 2021. And even then, it had more problems.
03:06Parts of the telescope were damaged during the launch, and then more parts started to break after it arrived at its
03:12destination. And then there's the most obvious example of all, Starship, which has had many test launches planned
03:19and scheduled, but each time something goes wrong at the very last minute and it gets cancelled. SpaceX have been trying
03:26to launch this fully reusable interplanetary transport system since late 2020, and they've managed to launch it
03:33twice, but both times the rocket exploded. Starship needs to be reliable, because if we're going to
03:39send humans to Mars, we're going to need a lot of these vehicles. So Starship needs to work, and SpaceX
03:46need to perfect it. So that means that the 2029 date for getting the samples back to Earth using an
03:52Ariane 5 rocket is not really looking very promising. And that's why NASA are pushing ahead with the Falcon
03:59Heavy option. But surely that's even riskier considering the history that SpaceX have with
04:04their Falcon 9 and their Falcon Heavy rockets. Well, maybe, but it's actually pretty unlikely that
04:10something will go wrong with the next launch. Since November 2020, SpaceX have launched their Falcon 9 and
04:17their Falcon Heavy rockets more than 50 times, and none of them have failed. Sure, one of the Falcon 9 rockets
04:23did explode recently while it was on the ground, but that's different to what happened back in 2015
04:29and 2016 when the Falcon 9 rockets exploded in midair. Those failures were due to issues with the
04:35second stage of the rocket, but those issues have long been identified and fixed. In fact, the recent
04:41explosion on the ground was actually a great example of how far SpaceX have come, because even though the
04:47rocket exploded, it didn't damage anything around it. All the other rockets that failed back in 2015 and
04:532016 took chunks of concrete with them when they exploded. But the one that failed in June 2023 only
05:00took out a fire suppression system inside the rocket. And SpaceX have already fixed this issue by changing
05:07the design of the rocket. But if SpaceX can get their Starship rocket working, then that might be a better
05:14option than the Falcon Heavy. That's because the Starship is fully reusable, whereas the Falcon 9 isn't.
05:20Only the booster stage comes back down and lands. The payload section that carries the cargo always
05:26gets jettisoned and burnt up in the atmosphere. So if SpaceX can get Starship working, then they could
05:32reuse the entire vehicle to pick up the sample on Mars and bring it back to Earth. If they could master
05:38this, then it would make interplanetary travel much cheaper. We're talking hundreds of millions of
05:44dollars instead of billions. That's probably why NASA said earlier this year that they weren't going to
05:50commit to using the Falcon Heavy until they knew for sure whether or not Starship would work.
05:56NASA want the cheapest, quickest way to get the samples back to Earth. And right now, Starship looks like
06:03that option, even though it's still not ready yet. NASA said that they would make a decision by the
06:09end of 2023 about whether or not to use the Starship or the Falcon Heavy, but it's now clear that they
06:16need to wait a little longer. Starship keeps getting delayed. SpaceX originally hoped to launch their next
06:23test flight in August, but on July, Elon Musk tweeted that it would be pushed back to October at the
06:28earliest. So NASA will definitely have to wait a little longer before they decide which rocket
06:33they're going to use. But when they do make that decision, whichever rocket they choose will have
06:39to get to work quickly because we don't want the sample sitting around on Mars for too long.
06:44According to scientists, Mars has changed a lot since the last time Earth saw it up close in the 1970s.
06:51Back then, the planet had lots of volcanoes erupting and whole areas of the surface were being reshaped
06:57by massive landslides. But over the past 50 years, Mars has gone quiet. There have been no major signs
07:04of geological activity, and scientists think that this might have something to do with the magnetic
07:10fields around the planet. When Mars was young, it rotated much faster. This made it generate a magnetic
07:17field that protected the planet from the solar wind. Over billions of years, the planet slowed down and the
07:23magnetic field disappeared. And as soon as that happened, the solar wind stripped away the atmosphere
07:28until only a thin shell remained. And this lack of atmosphere is probably why there's no sign of life
07:34on Mars today. So we really want to get that sample back to Earth because who knows how long it will be
07:40until we get another chance. But how long will it take once the rocket leaves Mars? The journey from Mars
07:46to Earth is never straightforward because the planets are always moving. So the distance between them is
07:52always changing. And rockets can't travel in a straight line because they have to follow the curves
07:58in space. That's called gravity turns. So depending on the route that the rocket takes, it could take
08:04anywhere between six and nine months for it to get to Earth. And then once it arrives, it won't just drop
08:10straight down into the atmosphere. It'll start off by making a gravity turn, slowing itself down as it
08:17does. This part of the journey will take several weeks. Then as it gets closer to Earth, it'll start
08:22to make a steeper descent and that's when we'll start to worry about burning up in the atmosphere.
08:27This part of the journey will happen so fast that we won't be able to do anything about it. We can't
08:33even watch it live because it would take several minutes for the signal to reach us from deep space.
08:38So we'll know about it long after it happens. Then finally, the rocket will enter the atmosphere
08:43and start to slow down again, eventually landing in the desert of Utah, where scientists will be
08:49waiting to collect the sample. Now it's important to remember that each of these stages could go wrong.
08:55Rockets can explode, they can crash land, they can get knocked off course. And if any of those things
09:01happen, then the sample will just be lost forever. Getting samples from other planets is a huge
09:07challenge and it's going to take a long time before we see the results of this mission.
09:12But if it works, then it will change our understanding of the universe forever.
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