NASA’s Mars Exploration Program will start another Mars Sample Return study, this time a yearlong one set to begin in January to find new ways to return the samples the Perseverance rover is collecting on Mars. The agency ended the earlier MSR mission last year because of cost concerns.
George Tahu, program executive for Mars Exploration, described the Perseverance Sample Retrieval Architecture (PSRA) strategy team at a virtual NASA Town Hall for the planetary science community, SpacePolicyOnline reported. He said the team will review lessons learned and past recommendations, assess current agency and industry capabilities, and consider whether some constraints can be removed and new acquisition approaches used. “The goal is to develop a high-level architecture approach and recommendations by the end of next year,” Tahu said.
A NASA spokesperson said in a statement to SpacePolicyOnline that the team will be small and drawn from inside the agency:
The strategy team will comprise of three, year-long detail opportunities for engineers and scientists currently serving as NASA civil servants.
NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) developed the MSR together. The mission’s estimated cost climbed to $11 billion. In January 2025, outgoing NASA Administrator Bill Nelson left the decision on how to proceed to the incoming Trump administration (NASA Watch on the cancellation). That administration’s fiscal 2026 budget request called for canceling the mission. Congress provided $110 million for Mars Future Missions, but not specifically for MSR.
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman has said several times that returning the samples would be one of the most important scientific achievements in history.
NASA Watch commentary: The study gives the Perseverance samples a way forward after a year in which the Planetary Science Caucus and four senators pushed Congress to keep the capabilities built for Mars Sample Return alive. A small in-house team is being asked to question old constraints and look at new ways of buying the mission, and it could well find something far cheaper than the $11 billion design. What it will deliver, though, is a high-level architecture at the end of 2027. It will still have to be funded, built and launched. Not doing a mission is a non-starter, and Isaacman has said as much. China is planning to launch Tianwen-3 in 2028 and return samples in 2031, so NASA has little time to spare once the team reports.
