The OIG report said the main obstacles to the mission were design, cost and schedule. This complex undertaking involves landing on Mars to retrieve samples collected by the Perseverance rover, launching them into orbit, and then returning them to Earth for analysis.
Although the Perseverance rover has already collected the necessary Mars samples, many key components are still under development, including the Sample Retrieval Vehicle and the Earth Return Orbiter (built by the European Space Agency). The report raises numerous concerns.
Issues with the design of the sample storage and return system: these problems resulted in a $200 million budget increase and a one-year delay.
Potential cost overruns: The original estimate of $7.4 billion is considered “premature and inadequate” due to the complexity of the program and other cost factors. The OIG report estimates potential costs to be between $8 billion and $11 billion; This is significantly higher than the initial estimate of $2.5 billion to $3 billion in July 2020.
Inflation, supply chain disruptions and increasing demands for financing individual components create additional financial challenges.
Source: Ferra
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