“We think we’re the organization that can bring these Mars samples home faster and cheaper,” said Richard French, vice president of business development and strategy for space systems at Rocket Lab, in an interview after the NASA announcement. “Our architecture, as proposed to NASA, was to bring samples back for less than $4 billion and as early as 2031.”
“It’s kind of interesting to note that that NASA spent a whole year assessing outcomes, and the plan forward is simply to study it for another year and defer the decision for another year,” French said. “This is not a this is not a problem that needs a lot more study by the agency. We want to proceed right now into early design phases.”
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