Space.com

NASA will announce update to Mars sample return plans today. Here's how to listen in

NASA's beleaguered Mars Sample Return program currently faces extreme costs of up to $11 billion and a timeline that could reach 2040. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an ...
Ars Technica

NASA is commissioning 10 studies on Mars Sample Return—most are commercial

NASA announced Friday that it will award contracts to seven companies, including SpaceX and Blue Origin, to study how to transport rock samples from Mars more cheaply back to Earth. The space agency ...
Space.com

NASA's Mars sample return plan is getting a major overhaul: 'The bottom line is $11 billion is too expensive'

"The bottom line is that $11 billion is too expensive, and not returning samples until 2040 is unacceptably too long." When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.
Digital Trends

NASA has two ideas for how to get samples back from Mars

This photomontage shows tubes containing samples from Mars, as collected by NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover. The agency’s Mars Sample Return Program plans to bring these samples back to study them in ...
Ars Technica

NASA wants a cheaper Mars Sample Return—Boeing proposes most expensive rocket

NASA is looking for ways to get rock samples back from Mars for less than the $11 billion the agency would need under its own plan, so last month, officials put out a call to industry to propose ideas ...
Los Angeles Times

NASA’s attempt to bring home part of Mars is unprecedented. The mission’s problems are not

Massive cost overruns. Key deadlines slipping out of reach. Problems of unprecedented complexity, and a generation’s worth of scientific progress contingent upon solving them. That’s the current state ...
CNN

NASA rethinks plan to return rare Mars samples to Earth

Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more. NASA is seeking ...