Mars Sample Return
Mars Sample Return mission concept. Image: NASA / JPL-Caltech.Mars Sample Return
The Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission, a joint effort between NASA and ESA, seeks to retrieve Martian rock, soil, and atmospheric samples collected by Perseverance and return them to Earth for in-depth analysis. Architecturally, it includes a Sample Retrieval Lander (SRL), a Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV), an Earth Return Orbiter (ERO), and the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover serving as the sample provider and primary delivery system. To gather the sealed sample tubes cached across the Martian surface, various possibilities have been explored. Planners initially proposed a fetch rover concept, but thanks to the success of the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter mission, this was later replaced by an aerial fetch proposal: two Ingenuity-derived helicopters equipped with wheels and gripping mechanisms. These rotorcraft would autonomously collect exposed sample tubes and transport them to the lander for loading, offering redundancy and flexibility.
Roles
Feb 2020–Sep 2021: Postdoctoral Scholar @ NASA JPL
- Trained & deployed Mask R-CNN object localization deep neural network model for detecting sample tubes in Mars Yard fetch rover experimental campaign.
- Created benchmarking software for the comparison of different object localization methods for sample tube detection using both publicly available & custom metrics.
- Worked on ROS-based simulation software for developing tube depot construction & recovery strategies with the Perseverance & fetch rovers respectively.
Videos
Mars Sample Return: Bringing Mars Rock Samples Back to Earth
Video: NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory YouTube Channel. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.
