NASA’s Perseverance rover has yet to collect any rock and soil on the red planet, but the space agency already is working hard on the Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission so it can bring any samples it collects to Earth. The space agency this week announced it has awarded the Mars Ascent Propulsion System (MAPS) contract to Virginia-based Northrop Grumman for the development of a Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV), a critical part of the effort to bring samples collected by Perseverance to Earth. Worth up to $84.5 million, the contract will see Northrop Grumman provide mission apparatus for NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, which is responsible for the MSR mission’s MAV element. Perseverance, which arrived on the Martian surface a couple of weeks ago, will spend the next two years exploring inside Jezero Crater for signs of past life . Should the rover come across any rock and soil samples of interest, the plan is to cache them for transportation to Earth as … [Read more...] about NASA lays groundwork for ambitious Mars Sample Return mission