The US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) on Thursday awarded Northrop Grumman Systems, a unit of major US aerospace group Northrop Grumman, the contract to develop and support the Mars Ascent Propulsion System (MAPS), which is an essential element for the planned Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission. The contract has a ‘base period’ of 14 months, which can be followed, at Nasa’s discretion, by up to two option periods. Work under the contract started immediately. MSR is a joint project between Nasa and the European Space Agency. It is intended to collect samples gathered and stored by Nasa’s recently-landed Perseverance rover and return them to Earth. This would then allow scientists to examine these samples using highly sophisticated and sensitive equipment that is too big to be sent to Mars.
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