{"id":501635,"date":"2026-02-26T21:24:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T21:24:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/501635\/"},"modified":"2026-02-26T21:24:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T21:24:12","slug":"a-non-public-document-reveals-that-science-may-not-be-prioritized-on-next-mars-mission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/501635\/","title":{"rendered":"A non-public document reveals that science may not be prioritized on next Mars mission"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The way this document is written suggests that when NASA scores bidders for the Mars Telecommunications Network, the addition of a camera or other scientific payloads won\u2019t be a net positive. However, if they pose an overall risk to the mission, they would be a net negative.<\/p>\n<p>New award to Rocket Lab may complicate things<\/p>\n<p>One of the other intriguing parts of this mission is that it sets up a battle royale of sorts for some of NASA\u2019s most prominent contractors. <a href=\"https:\/\/rocketlabcorp.com\/updates\/6-reasons-a-mars-telecommunications-orbiter-matters-to-us-all\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Rocket Lab<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.blueorigin.com\/news\/blue-origin-mars-telecommunications-orbiter\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Blue Origin<\/a> have both waged very public campaigns that tout their solutions to NASA\u2019s needs. SpaceX is also interested in winning a Mars mission for its Starship launch system. Then there are traditional contractors, such as Lockheed Martin, which have a long and storied history of building robust (if costly) Mars missions.<\/p>\n<p>If NASA is going to launch the Mars Telecommunications Network by late 2028 to make the next \u201cwindow\u201d to the red planet, it must move quickly with this solicitation. In particular, industry protests after a decision is made could hold up the project for months and would almost certainly doom NASA\u2019s hopes of making the 2028 launch opportunity.<\/p>\n<p>On Monday, the space agency awarded Rocket Lab <a href=\"https:\/\/sam.gov\/search\/?page=1&amp;pageSize=25&amp;sort=-modifiedDate&amp;sfm%5BsimpleSearch%5D%5BkeywordRadio%5D=ALL&amp;sfm%5Bstatus%5D%5Bis_active%5D=true\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">a $390,936 contract<\/a> to study \u201cMars End-to-End Communication Service Architectures.\u201d The award is not significant monetarily, but it does indicate that NASA is interested in Rocket Lab\u2019s ideas for improving communications between Earth and Mars, and potentially a Mars Sample Return mission down the road. However, one source suggested to Ars that the award is a potential conflict of interest.<\/p>\n<p>The contracting office for the Rocket Lab award is Goddard Space Flight Center, which is also responsible for managing the Mars Telecommunications Network. That Rocket Lab, alone, received an award like this from the NASA center that will also decide on the orbiting spacecraft\u2014coterminous when such a decision will be made\u2014is surely to be the basis of one or more protests should Rocket Lab win the Mars Telecommunications Network contract, the source told Ars.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The way this document is written suggests that when NASA scores bidders for the Mars Telecommunications Network, the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":501636,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[49,48,66,306],"class_list":["post-501635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=501635"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501635\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/501636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=501635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=501635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=501635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}