Perseverance rover deposits choose rock and soil samples in sealed tubes on Mars’s floor for future missions to retrieve and convey again to Earth for detailed examine.
NASA/JPL-Caltech
From the “you don’t say!” division of NASA house value tags, exploring the Purple Planet is an costly endeavor.
A brand new infographic from Statista gives a snap shot of NASA missions to Mars, revealing that the Perseverance rover stays the seventh most expensive spacecraft within the historical past of the house company’s planetary exploration program and the third most expensive Mars mission.
Credit score: Statista
NASA expects to spend $2.7 billion on the undertaking based on analysis from The Planetary Society, the Statista graphic exhibits, a determine that’s anticipated to ascend to $2.9 billion when inflation changes are included on the finish of its lifespan. The spacecraft itself accounted for the lion’s share of the funding at $2.2 billion whereas launch providers got here to $243 million. Two years of prime mission operations are anticipated so as to add an extra $200 million.
NASA Viking missions to Mars of the 1970s.
Credit score: NASA
Rack ‘em, stack ‘em
“Regardless of that seemingly hefty price ticket, Perseverance stays the seventh most costly spacecraft within the historical past of NASA’s planetary exploration program and the third most costly Mars mission,” Niall McCarthy of Statista explains.
The just-landed rover trails NASA’s Viking 1 and a pair of orbiter/lander missions of the 1970s, in addition to the Curiosity rover which skilled value development after lacking its unique launch window.
“All 4 Mars initiatives stay among the many most costly missions ever undertaken by NASA,” the Statisa infographic background explains.