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- NASA’s plan to recover samples from Mars and bring them back to Earth is currently on hold due to the need for a faster, cheaper method.
- The project has been on NASA’s agenda for years, but costs have increased, with an estimated total cost of $8 billion to $11 billion and an arrival date of 2040.
- Administrator Bill Nelson said the cost and schedule are unacceptable and he is looking at alternative options to renew the project.
NASA’s plan The task of bringing samples from Mars to Earth is on hold until there is a faster, cheaper way, space agency officials said Monday.
Reclaiming Mars soil and rocks has been on NASA’s to-do list for decades, but the date kept moving forward as costs soared. A recent independent review estimated the total cost at between $8 billion and $11 billion, with an arrival date of 2040, about a decade later than announced.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said that’s too much, too late. He calls on private industry and space agency centers to propose other options to renew the project. As NASA faces widespread budget cuts, it wants to avoid destroying other science projects to fund the Mars sample project.
“We want to have as many new, fresh ideas as we can,” he said at a news conference.
In this conceptual illustration provided by NASA, NASA’s Perseverance rover uses its drill to extract rock samples. NASA has postponed the effort to bring the samples to Earth until there is a faster and cheaper way. (NASA photo illustration via Getty Images)
NASA’s Perseverance rover has already collected 24 tube core samples since it landed in 2021 in Mars’ Jezero Crater, an ancient river delta. The goal is to collect more than 30 samples to look for possible signs of ancient Martian life.
The space agency wants to bring at least some of the collected samples to Earth sometime in the 2030s for no more than $7 billion. That would require a spacecraft going to Mars to remove the tubes and launch them off the planet. Then it must meet another spacecraft that would bring the samples to Earth.
NASA science mission chief Nicky Fox declined to speculate at the news conference about when the samples might arrive on Earth, given a new program and timeline, or even how many samples might be returned. That information will be included in any proposal, he said.
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“We’ve never launched from another planet, and that’s really what makes Mars sample return such a challenging and interesting mission,” Fox said.
Scientists are eager to analyze pristine samples from Mars in their own laboratories, far superior to the kind of rudimentary tests performed by spacecraft on the red planet. According to NASA, such deep tests will be necessary to confirm any evidence of microscopic life dating back billions of years, when water flowed on the planet.
The samples will help NASA decide where astronauts will go on Mars in the 2040s, Nelson said.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, had been in charge of the sample project. She was hit with hundreds of layoffs earlier this year due to all the budget cuts. Nelson is seeking ideas from across the space agency, and the revamped program is more widespread.
NASA hopes to receive ideas in late fall.
