In a move aimed at supercharging scientific discovery, NASA will combine its world-leading scientific expertise with commercial innovation to send a new mission to Mars.
The partnership, unveiled by NASA administrator Jared Isaacman on Wednesday, will see the agency provide a specialised suite of atmospheric-science instruments, while Relativity Space takes the lead on the spacecraft, rocket and flight operations.
The mission, dubbed “Aeolus”, is slated for launch in 2028 and represents a key step in NASA’s strategy to accelerate the pace of exploration. By leveraging commercial investment and development, the space agency hopes to conduct more frequent science missions while focusing its own resources on high-value research.
Aeolus is set to be a game changer for Mars exploration. Carrying a suite of four sophisticated, NASA-built instruments, the orbiter will provide the first integrated, daily global view of Martian winds, temperatures, dust and clouds.
This data is considered essential for the next generation of space travel. By refining models of the Martian environment, the mission aims to significantly reduce the risks associated with landing both robotic and human crews on the planet’s surface.
“Public-private partnerships like this are a force multiplier for science,” Isaacman said. “By pairing NASA’s world-class instruments with commercial innovation and investment, we can deliver more science, more often, and reduce the time it takes to get essential data into the hands of researchers preparing for future human missions to Mars.”
Under the agreement, researchers at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley will design, build and integrate the four-instrument payload, which includes:
- Doppler wind and temperature sounder: to map wind and temperature up to 60 kilometres above the surface.
- Thermal limb sounder: to provide vertical temperature profiles and track dust and water-ice clouds.
- Surface radiometric sensor package: to measure surface energy, dust and cloud properties.
- Wide-field context camera: To capture daily images of atmospheric activity across the globe.
Relativity Space will handle the heavy lifting, including spacecraft development, launch operations and maintaining the probe in orbit. NASA has committed to supporting the mission for at least one Martian year, approximately 687 Earth days while developing the software to turn raw data into ready-to-use information for the scientific community.
The collaboration is formalised through a six-year reimbursable Space Act Agreement, a framework designed to ensure mission continuity and stable, predictable development as NASA looks towards the future of human exploration of the Red Planet.
Want to see more stories from trusted news sources?Make Space Connect a preferred news source on Google.