Will Mars Sample Return ever happen?

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Mars Sample Return….is a mess. We got an update this week on NASA’s ambitious program to return 30 carefully prepared sample tubes of Mars regolith and rock that are on the red planet, and as someone who very much wants this mission to happen, frankly, I have some questions.

Today I’m going to break down what Mars Sample Return is, why it’s important and why I do want it to happen, the challenges it’s facing and what NASA announced, and why I’m not quite satisfied with what we heard from the agency this week.

Why do we care about Mars samples?

The Mars Perseverance rover landed in the Jezero Crater on the red planet on February 18, 2021.

This landing spot was chosen VERY deliberately. Scientists think Jezero Crater is the site of an ancient river delta, now dry, on Mars. NASA intentionally landed Perseverance in a place where it was likeliest ancient life could have thrived — in water. We think certain chemical elements — carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorous, and sulfur, as well as water, are necessary for any sort of life to develop.

Perseverance is basically a robotic geologist that is specifically designed to look for indications ancient life may have existed on the red planet.

But it’s important to note that Perseverance is not designed to tell us whether life existed at one point (or currently exists) on Mars. That’s a determination humans would have to make looking directly at Martian rock and regolith in a lab.

That’s why the Mars Perseverance rover has been collecting and storing samples since it landed on the red planet. It’s very complicated and cool, here’s how it works: the robot’s percussive rotary drill takes a core sample, and then docks it, where it’s taken inside the rover to a place where the sample handling arm can grab it. The sample arm then pulls the full tube out of the drill bit, after which Percy images it with a camera inside the Sample Cacheing System.

After that, a ramrod is shoved into the container to gauge its size, then it’s quickly sealed, after which another photo is taken. Then it’s placed in the sealing station, where the tube is more thoroughly hermetically sealed, at which point it’s returned to and stored in Perseverance.

These samples are invaluable; not only are they intended to be the first intentionally collected pieces of Mars that we can directly study here on Earth (we do have meteorites ejected from the Martian surface here on Earth, but they’re ancient and have been subjected to the stress of re-entry and contaminated by Earth), but they also could directly contain fossilized evidence of microbial life.

Every 10 years, different science disciplines conduct what’s called a Decadal Survey, which basically outlines the highest scientific priorities for the next 10 years. For planetary science, the highest priority for two decades has been Mars Sample Return. It’s a huge deal, and we’ve been working on it for a very long time.

The challenges of Mars Sample Return

Now, the mission architecture of Mars Sample Return is incredibly complicated. NASA has experience collecting samples from the moon with astronauts (China and Russia have collected them robotically) and thanks to missions like OSIRIS-REx, NASA has experience landing on and collecting samples from asteroids. But Mars is a whole different story.

Mars is much further than anything we’ve returned samples from before. While the asteroid Bennu, which was the target of OSIRIS-REx, probably originated as a main-belt asteroid between Mars and Jupiter, it’s now a near-Earth asteroid. It comes within 186,000 miles (299,000 km) of Earth every six years. Mars is, on average, 140 million miles (225 million km) from Earth. Launch windows only occur every 26 months, if you’re using the most energy efficient Hohmann transfer orbit which would cut down on costs and use the minimum amount of propellant. And the journey to the red planet would take 9 months one way, using the propulsion methods in use today.

Not only that, but the landing had to be pinpoint. To be able to collect Perseverance’s samples, whatever craft lands on the Martian surface to collect them had to land within 200 feet, or 60 meters, of its target site because it has to be close enough for Perseverance to come back to it, and Percy’s top speed is .1 mph. Pinpoint landings on other planets, when things like GPS don’t exist, are hard to say the least.

The original mission architecture

The previously approved plan, as a joint mission from NASA and the ESA was as follows:

There were three separate parts. The first is the robot Perseverance, which is on Mars collecting samples as we speak. The second part is the actual retrieval of the samples from the surface and retuning them to Mars orbit. The third is the Earth Return Orbiter.

With the new plan, the overall architecture is the same. Where NASA changed things is within that middle part, how we’d retrieve the samples from the surface.

Originally, the plan was to launch a sample return lander in 2028, which would also travel with the Mars Ascent Vehicle and two sample recovery helicopters, similar to Mars Ingenuity. The Mars Sample Return Lander would have 5 solar arrays, weigh almost 7,500 lbs (3,375 kg), and be the average size of a two-car garage. It’s not small, nor is it lightweight. Landing this thing was going to be a real challenge, hence why NASA was planning on building an entirely new spacecraft from scratch.

The two Ingenuity-style helicopters were to help collect samples, in case Perseverance struggled to return to the landing site.

The Mars Ascent Vehicle, or MAV, is a separate two-stage solid fueled rocket currently being developed by Lockheed Martin. Once the samples are safely on board, it will take off and enter Martian orbit.

At that point, once safely in orbit, the payload fairing would eject the sample container into orbit. The spent second stage of the rocket would remain in orbit and broadcast a signal to make it easier to find.

Then we come to the third part of the mission: the MAV would dock with the Earth Return Orbiter, developed by the ESA. Onboard would be the NASA capture and containment system for safeguarding the Mars samples. The ERO would be able to home in on the broadcasted signal in order to locate the sample container. Once it’s locked on, it would slowly and carefully overtake the sample container and then basically swallow it.

Once the sample container is safely on board, the capture and containment system would be sealed, safeguarding the samples, after which an onboard robotic arm would place the entire thing into a capsule designed for Earth re-entry. The spacecraft would then head back to Earth, and would release the Earth Entry Vehicle when it’s three days away from our planet. The Earth Entry Vehicle is designed to re-enter without parachutes and will touch down at the same location as the OSIRIS-REx samples, the Utah Test and Training Range.

Well back in April 2024, NASA announced that with this mission architecture, the mission would cost $11 billion and the samples would not get back before 2040, which is why NASA started looking for alternatives.

I also want to add that there’s some additional schedule pressure here because China is planning on a Mars sample return mission by 2030. In the grand scheme of things, I don’t think it matters who does it first, but beating China is a big priority of the new administration, so doing this quickly matters in that respect.

The changes to MSR: Are they enough?

NASA’s announced changes aren’t very dramatic. The overall mission architecture — meaning the three separate parts, Perseverance, the sample lander and ascent vehicle, and the return to Earth — have to pretty much stay the same. There’s no feasible way to combine any of this without incurring significant additional costs and complexity. Having to build entirely new spacecraft from scratch adds a lot of time and money, so NASA started looking for ways to reduce that.

What they announced is basically just some changes to the middle part of the mission, specifically the Mars Sample Return Lander and the Mars Ascent Vehicle; Perseverance is obviously already on Mars, so no changes there, and the ESA Earth Return Orbiter would stay the same.

There are two possible strategies.

Both involve cutting down the size and mass of the Mars Ascent vehicle, which would in turn mean that the Mars Sample Return Lander could be much smaller. They would also cut weight from the Mars Sample Return lander by switching to nuclear batteries instead of the solar panel array. This cuts down costs, as well as gives NASA more flexibility because they’d be able to operate during dust storm season. It will also warm the solid rocket motors on the MAV.

They’re also doing away with the Ingenuity-style helicopters because they have confidence that Perseverance will be able to trek to the landing site to deliver samples. There are 10 additional samples stored around Jezero Crater that the helicopters were supposed to retrieve, but these will remain on the red planet. Only the 30 stored on the Perseverance rover will come back.

So with that in mind, here are the two options:

(1) Using heritage and flight proven technology to land it

Because of the significant weight reduction, the entire package could be delivered to the Martian surface by the sky crane, which NASA has successfully used to deliver both Mars Curiosity and Perseverance to the surface of the red planet.

This would involve lowering the Mars Sample Return Lander and Mars Ascent Vehicle with a cable attached to a rocket stage hovering above the ground. The sky crane would need to be about 20 percent bigger than the one used for Curiosity and Percy.

(2) Partnering with a commercial company to build a lander and landing mechanism that would work for NASA’s purposes.

There was also the question of whether we return the samples directly to Earth, or return them to lunar orbit (which would, again, make the process of getting the samples off Mars and back to the Earth-moon system less expensive and faster). But NASA prefers returning them to Earth because we’d still have to go get them from lunar orbit (though by this point, if Artemis stays as-is and isn’t significantly modified by incoming administrator Jared Isaacman, we’d have the Gateway space station in orbit of the moon). The idea would be that would incur additional cost, increase complexity, and it would take longer to get the samples back to Earth.

Remember, the thing that prompted this redesign was a cost estimate of $11 billion and the samples wouldn’t be back on Earth until the 2040s. This revised architecture has an estimated cost of less than $8 billion. The earliest launch possibilities, according to the associate administrator of NASA’s science directorate Nicky Fox, would be 2030 for the Earth Return Orbiter and 2031 for the sample return lander. We don’t have an estimate return date for the samples, all Dr. Fox said was that they’re confident it would be before 2040.

I have thoughts, and I have questions, so let’s get into them.

My thoughts and criticisms

Let’s start with this: NASA hasn’t made a decision between the two options, that will come in mid-2026 and will be the responsibility of the new administration. I’m going to stress again that I want Mars Sample Return to happen, and that I personally think it’s important, but the entire thing feels a little bizarre.

I’ll get into each of these points, but in sum:

• They didn’t have a decision to announce, or anything really concrete to say beyond “we aren’t cancelling the program”;

• We’re still not getting all the sample containers back, which was a big emphasis of the April 2024 press conference

• It’s still going to be really expensive, and it’s money they don’t currently have

• I personally think their schedule continues to be unrealistic

• This makes me question NASA’s ability to even execute a broad flagship program at this point.

Punting the decision to the next administration

I don’t want to criticize NASA for holding a press conference, because I think frankness and information disclosure is a good thing, but there was really nothing to announce here. There have been no decisions made, and we all suspect the agency is going to go through a drastic reorganization under the new administration, so what they announced may not even be relevant in 18 months, when the decision point comes.

The timing of this felt very much politically motivated — NASA wanted to announce something so their work on the program up to now is public record, and to make it harder to cancel, basically, as well as emphasize the need to fund it.

It’s especially interesting considering they did make decisions on the Orion heat shield last month, and did not leave that to the next administration. It feels like they’re picking and choosing here a little bit, when both Artemis and Mars Sample Return are supposed to be top priorities for the agency.

And to be clear, they need the extra time to refine the options and do engineering analysis. They’re not ready to make a decision on this right now. But the fact that they aren’t ready to make a decision is indicative of a larger problem at NASA.

The schedule and budget have long been problematic

Here’s the thing: It’s not like Mars Sample Return is new!

NASA has been working on Mars Sample Return for decades, since the discoveries of the Viking landers in the 1970s.

Mars Sample Return has been a flagship mission for NASA since 1988. This is not new. This has been a “top” priority since the 1980s. So how are we now, in the year 2025, still hearing about how NASA is trying to simplify the complexity of the mission by changing out some components on the Mars Sample Lander and making the Mars ascent rocket less heavy? It just seems very basic.

NASA has been working in a less than ideal budget environment for literally decades, basically since the first budget cuts of the Apollo program before we even landed on the moon in 1969. Since then, they have not had enough money to do everything they want to do in the way they want to do it. This is not new. This is something that NASA is very used to.

And let’s look at the timing, too. The MSR independent review board was convened in May 2023, which by the way wasn’t even the first independent review board for Mars Sample Return, there was another in late 2020. This second review board delivered their report in September 2023. The program was scrapped to be redesigned in April 2024. It’s now January 2025. That’s almost two years, and we still don’t have a decision on Mars Sample Return.

It’s frankly hard to listen to an announcement like this and not think, “NASA has been in a limited budget environment for decades and trying to cut costs. Why wasn’t this updated architecture something considered years ago?”

Are NASA’s updated estimates even realistic?

What’s more the MSR independent review board made it clear that the current version of MSR had unrealistic budget and schedule expectations from the beginning. And I’m honestly not sure that even the current, newly announced budget and schedule expectations are realistic.

Back in September 2024, the NASA Office of the Inspector General issued a report on the challenges and risks associated with keeping the International Space Station in orbit until 2030, or longer if necessary.

It’s a really interesting report, but one of the key takeaways for me was that the U.S. Deorbit Vehicle, which NASA contracted with SpaceX to develop in 2024, very may well may not be ready in time. The vehicle is supposed to launch in 2029, but the report points out:

Now I’m not overly worried about USDV because it’s based on heritage Dragon hardware with just a modified trunk. But the point stands: Eight and a half years is the average.

For example, the first contract award for SpaceX’s Crew Dragon was in 2014. The first operational mission was in late 2020. We’re not going to even talk about Boeing.

For the Mars Sample Return Lander, let’s be generous and say it takes that same six years, which is not an unreasonable prediction. The decision point for which option they they’re going to pick is mid-2026. Then they have to award the contract. So let’s say that doesn’t happen until 2027. That means the vehicle wouldn’t be ready until 2033. There is a launch window in 2033, but if NASA isn’t able to get the vehicle ready in time? Then the next launch window isn’t until 2035. And keep in mind we’re talking about two different vehicles integrated into one here (the lander and the ascent vehicle) so I don’t think it’s unreasonable to think they may not make a 2033 window.

So if they launch in 2035, arrive in 2036, then wait for the next optimal Hohmann transfer window to come back, which is the middle of 2037, then the samples don’t get here until 2038. That’s not much better than 2040 in my opinion.

And let’s look at the cost as well. We’re talking $6 billion to $8 billion more, and it’s cost $20 billion to date. I’m not actually criticizing the cost here. It’s a flagship mission for the agency, we always knew it was going to be expensive. Flagship missions should be expensive and daring and cutting edge.

But my point is that NASA didn’t have $11 billion when they decided to redesign the mission last year, and they don’t have $6 to $8 billion now. One of the first things that Administrator Nelson said during the press conference was that Congress needed to start funding MSR in this fiscal year or it’s not going to happen. And, again, because I’m pretty sure they’re not going to make a 2030 launch window, it’s probably going to be even more money than they’ve stated.

And this approach gets back the bulk of the sample return containers, 30, which you know is definitely better than getting none back, but it doesn’t get back all 40+ of them.

And I already know that the comments are going to be full of people asking why I’m being so mean to NASA. Look, I love NASA. I have so much respect for the agency and people who work there, I know a lot people who work there and they do amazing work. I have so much respect for NASA, and that’s why I’m disappointed here. My job here isn’t to be nice to NASA, it’s to look at what they’re doing and be honest in my analysis.

And I just don’t see this happening, to be honest.

NASA may be trying to do too much

I’d love to be surprised because as I’ve said I think MSR is important, but I don’t see a way in NASA’s current budget environment, and with an incoming administration that’s set on cutting back, to make a mission like this work. I think a lot of us are starting to ask questions about NASA’s capability to manage large missions like this, given what we’ve seen.

I often talk about how difficult it is in this day and age to be a space reporter, when it seems like everything is a space company. The best just so big — from the history of the universe to astrophysics to planetary science to space policy to politics to spaceship engineering to medical stuff, the health of astronauts to environmental concerns — during the eclipse I had countless people asking me about analyzing weather forecasts. I’m a space reporter. I don’t know anything about the weather!

But you’re expected to be able to cover all of this stuff and have enough knowledge to be able to do it competently. It’s HARD. And I feel like that’s a little of what NASA is dealing with. When the entire agency was focused on one goal, going to the moon, they were really at their peak and they were able to accomplish amazing things.

And to be clear, they’re still able to accomplish amazing things — look at JWS, for example. But the fact remains that it seems like they’re trying to do so much that they’re struggling to make progress on their top priorities because there are too many top priorities. And I think we’re seeing that in both Mars Sample Return and the Artemis program. We’ll see what happens, I hope they find a way to make MSR work.

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