NASA Is Asking for Help to Return Samples That Could Uncover Life on Mars

The Mars Sample Return program is a joint NASA-ESA effort, with the goal of uncovering signs of ancient life on the Red Planet.

Jack Daleo

Monday, April 15, 2024 at 05:05 PM ET

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An artist’s illustration depicts the vehicles NASA initially planned to use to recover samples from its Perseverance Martian rover. [Courtesy: NASA]

Key Takeaways:

NASA's Mars Sample Return (MSR) program faces significant cost overruns, with estimates now reaching $8-$11 billion, and an "unacceptable" projected sample return date of 2040.
To address these challenges, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson is seeking "out-of-the-box" designs from the agency and industry, focusing on leveraging existing technology.
The goal of these revised plans is to reduce mission costs and complexity, aiming for a sample return in the 2030s to prevent funding cuts to other critical NASA projects.
The MSR mission, which has already seen the Perseverance rover collect samples, is deemed crucial for understanding Mars's history and potential for ancient life.

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NASA Administrator Bill Nelson has shared the space agency’s “revised path forward” for the Mars Sample Return program, a proposed NASA-European Space Agency (ESA) mission to return Martian rock and soil samples to Earth. NASA’s Perseverance rover has been collecting rock and soil samples on the Red Planet since 2021.

The agency is asking “the NASA community,” including its Jet Propulsion Laboratory and other agency centers, to collaborate on “out-of-the-box” designs, using existing technology, that could return the samples.