"To decide not to return them, or to put it off to an indefinite future time with human missions would be to take a major ...

Related: NASA's Mars sample return plan is getting a major overhaul: 'The bottom line is $11 billion is too expensive' Seven of the proposals received a $1.5 million contract to conduct 90-day ...

After billions of dollars in spending and decades of planning, NASA may be forced to abandon precious samples of air, rock ...

The White House wants to focus on 'beating China back to the Moon and putting the first human on Mars.' The administration is ...

NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover has been on the prowl within Jezero Crater, a site on the Red Planet that eons ago harbored a ...

See how the Sample Transfer Arm for the Mars Sample Return mission will work in this animation. Credit: ESA/NASA ...

Mars sample return tube Instead, NASA and their international partners have been working to distribute the cost and complexity of the mission among several different vehicles. In fact, the first ...

One of NASA’s biggest space missions is in deep trouble. The Mars Sample Return mission is currently on track to be one of the biggest undertakings the space agency has ever attempted ...

The plan would significantly overhaul flagship programs ... It would also cancel the Mars Sample Return mission, a joint project with the European Space Agency to bring back rock samples collected ...