NASA Capture, Containment, and Return System: Bringing Mars Samples to Earth

Bruno Victorino Sarli
Heliospace Corp. and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

The Capture, Containment, and Return System (CCRS) project is NASA's last step in bringing back Mars samples. CCRS will close a decades-long multi-mission and multi-agency effort to bring Mars surface samples back to Earth for scientific studies. CCRS will launch in 2027 on the European Earth Return Orbiter (ERO) spacecraft, which will provide communications relay for the Mars Sample Return ground missions, Perseverance rover and the Sample Retrieval Lander (SRL) (to be launched in 2028). The main mission for CCRS begins when the first-ever orbital planetary capture operation occurs with CCRS catching and securing the Orbiting Sample (OS) in low Mars orbit. From this point, the system will perform additional "firsts": it will autonomously contain the OS with heat-shrink-fit, sterilize the outside surface, and assemble the Earth entry capsule, named Earth Entry System (EES), in orbit around Mars using a gantry mechanism. At approximately 2.8 Lunar distances from Earth, or 3-days before entry into Earth's atmosphere, CCRS will open its micrometeoroid shield and release the EES on a ballistic trajectory to Earth. The EES is designed to be a fully passive system that will enter the atmosphere and land without a parachute at the Utah Test and Training Range (UTTR).

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