CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA’s plan to bring samples from Mars back to Earth is on hold until there is a faster and cheaper way, space agency officials said Monday.
Recovering soil and rocks from Mars has been on NASA’s to-do list for decades, but the date has kept moving forward as costs have risen. A recent independent analysis 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 this is too late. He is asking private industry and space agency centers to come up with other options to revamp the project. With NASA facing widespread budget cuts, he wants to avoid destroying other science projects to fund the Mars sample project.
“We want to get all the new, fresh ideas we can,” he said at a news conference.
NASA’s Perseverance rover has already collected 24 core samples in tubes since landing in 2021 in Mars’ Jezero Crater, an ancient river delta. The goal is more than 30 samples to look for possible signs of ancient life on Mars.
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. This would require a spacecraft to go 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 press conference when the samples might reach Earth, given a new program and schedule, or even how many samples might be returned. That information will be included in any proposals, she said.
“We’ve never launched from another planet, and that’s what makes returning samples from Mars 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 done by spacecraft on the Red Planet. Such in-depth testing will be needed to confirm any evidence of microscopic life dating back billions of years when water flowed on the planet, according to NASA.
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, was responsible for the sample design. It was hit with hundreds of layoffs earlier this year due to all the budget cuts. Nelson is seeking ideas across the space agency, with the revamped program more widespread.
NASA expects to receive any ideas by late fall.
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