NASA Awards Contract for Mars Sample Return Systems

WASHINGTON, Nov. 23, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- NASA has awarded a contract to Honeybee Robotics LLC of Longmont, Colorado, for the Mars Sample Return (MSR) ? Capture, Containment, and Retrieval System (CCRS), Earth Entry System (EES), and Spin Eject Mechanism (SEM).

The total value of this cost-plus-fixed-fee contract is $17,686,341. The period of performance runs from Nov. 30, 2022, through July 30, 2026.

Honeybee Robotics LLC will provide the personnel, services, materials, equipment, and facilities necessary to build the CCRS, EES, and SEM, as well as for the successful and on-time implementation of the design, analysis, development, development test, fabrication, assembly, verification, engineering data analysis, calibration, qualification, acceptance, delivery, and post-delivery support of the SEM.

The SEM is being procured as a component of the EES, which is part of the Mars Sample Return CCRS. The SEM restrains the EES during launch, cruise, and Capture & Containment Module operations and is an integral part of the primary load path for all of these mission stages. The SEM will also release the EES from the MSR Earth Return Orbiter spacecraft.  

The work will be performed at the contractor's facility in Altadena, California, and at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

For information about NASA's Mars Sample Return mission, visit:

https://mars.nasa.gov/msr/

SOURCE NASA