Europe’s Earth Return Orbiter Advances to Next Development Stage

by Erica Marchand

Paris, France (SPX) Jul 08, 2024

ESA’s Earth Return Orbiter (ERO), the pioneering spacecraft designed to capture and return samples from Mars, has achieved a significant milestone, completing its critical design review (CDR). This essential phase confirms the performance, quality, and reliability of the spacecraft’s systems, enabling the next steps in its development.

A CDR is a crucial stage in any spaceflight project, ensuring that the spacecraft can move from concept to reality. The recently completed Platform Critical Design Review (P-CDR) involved collaboration between European industry and NASA, verifying the ERO’s readiness for its mission to Mars.

The ERO represents ESA’s significant contribution to the Mars Sample Return campaign, which aims to bring Martian rock, soil, and atmospheric samples back to Earth through a series of coordinated missions.

“European industry is ready for the next chapter. A robust design is the foundation for building, testing, and assembling the hardware into a complete spacecraft,” said Tiago Loureiro, ERO’s project team leader. With the design now validated, manufacturing and testing of the spacecraft components can begin, ensuring the mission stays on track for its upcoming launch.

The mission involves suppliers from 11 European countries, all working together to build an orbiter capable of completing a round-trip journey from Earth to Mars.

NASA has recently revised the Mars Sample Return program to reduce complexity, risk, and cost by incorporating innovative designs and proven technology. ESA has collaborated closely with NASA to adapt to these changes, ensuring the ERO remains flexible and capable of meeting new mission requirements.

“The configuration of the spacecraft is robust enough to be flexible with the cargo and to help find solutions for a new architecture. ESA and our industrial partners adapted to a new scenario, staying inventive and resourceful while remaining a reliable partner for NASA,” explained Tiago. “We have confirmed that the Earth Return Orbiter works for what it was planned to do and more, whatever the alternatives are,” he added.

The ERO is tasked with the critical job of retrieving samples from Mars. Before bringing them back to Earth, it must locate and capture a basketball-sized capsule filled with samples collected by NASA’s Perseverance rover.

“This mission exemplifies European technological prowess at its finest. From a staggering distance of up to several hundred million kilometers, Earth-based teams will choreograph a complex orbital dance around Mars,” said Orson Sutherland, ESA’s Mars program manager. The mission involves locating a small capsule, maneuvering into the precise orbit for rendezvous, and capturing it remotely from Earth.

The five-year mission of the ERO will also include serving as a communication relay for rovers and landers on Mars’s surface.

European teams bring decades of expertise in autonomous navigation, rendezvous, and docking to this mission. Technologies matured through past missions such as the Automated Transfer Vehicle and JUICE, as well as the ExoMars Rosalind Franklin rover mission, are being utilized.

ERO will be the largest spacecraft built for interplanetary flight, with contributions from France, Italy, Germany, the UK, Spain, Switzerland, Norway, Denmark, Belgium, Romania, and The Netherlands. Airbus Defence and Space is responsible for the spacecraft’s construction and mission analysis, while Thales Alenia Space will handle the assembly, communication system development, and orbit insertion module from its Turin, Italy facility.

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