An exploding budget and an unraveling schedule spell disappointment for NASA's mission to learn more about Mars's history.

NASA recently deemed this situation unacceptable. In April 2024, agency chief Bill Nelson announced that an overhaul of the ...

After an independent review concluded NASA's plans to robotically collect and return rock and soil samples from Mars could cost up to $11 billion, NASA "pulled the plug" and is focusing on two options ...

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson left a final decision on a new mission architecture to the next NASA administrator working ...

NASA wants to return Mars samples to Earth, but budget problems and technical woes have the mission caught between a rock and the Red Planet. There appears to be an unofficial robotic space race ...

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson and Nicky Fox, associate administrator for the space agency’s Science Mission ... samples out of Mars orbit and fly them back to Earth—is 2030.

cost and mission duration, by the second half of 2026, Nelson announced during a news conference on Tuesday. The NASA Perseverance rover has been gathering rocks and dust since it landed on Mars ...

The Mars Sample Return (MSR) campaign began in 2021 with the arrival of NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover to collect and cache ...

NASA announced Tuesday it had narrowed down to two options the reworked Mars Sample Return mission aiming for a cheaper ... that is aiming for launch in 2030. The ESA spacecraft would then fly ...

NASA proposes a quicker, cost-effective plan to bring Mars samples to Earth by 2030, reducing the mission cost from $11 billion to around $7 billion. The revised options include traditional sky ...