NASA ponders smaller experiments to 'hitch a ride' to the Red Planet

Image courtesy: NASA

New Delhi: Mars seems to be 'the' most-wanted dream destination for all space agencies, with all of them setting huge goals to make their respective/collaborated Mars missions successful .

NASA's 2020 Mars mission is one of the most anticipated projects and has science and space aficionados waiting with bated breath for any news or updates regarding the same.

Year 2020 is not too far away and considering the magnitude of the situation, NASA is leaving no stone unturned to prepare for one of its biggest missions yet.

To maximize resources as it pushes the boundaries of deep space exploration, the agency is exploring opportunities to take advantage of emerging private sector space capabilities, NASA said in a press release on Tuesday.

NASA released a request for information on Monday regarding possible commercial sources to fly limited payloads on planned, non-NASA missions to Mars. The agency will use the responses to gather market data on the complete spectrum of commercial plans, and identify any excess capacity that may exist for NASA payloads.

Furthering NASA’s human deep space exploration goals will require a significant amount of scientific research, and opportunities to collect data on Mars have been rare. Only seven successful missions to the surface of Mars have taken place in the history of spaceflight.

Evolving capabilities in the private sector have opened the possibility for NASA to take advantage of commercial opportunities to land scientific payloads on the surface of the Red Planet. Such capability would provide an additional method of acquiring science and engineering data concerning Mars, and would complement NASA’s current deep space exploration efforts, the space agency reported.