NASA rethinks plan to return rare Mars samples to Earth

NASA is seeking innovative methods that could help retrieve samples collected by the Perseverance rover on Mars in the future. The rover, which landed on Mars in February 2021, has been gathering specimens from Jezero Crater, where an ancient lake and river delta once existed on the red planet. Scientists believe the samples could help them better understand whether life ever existed on Mars.

Nelson said it’s unacceptable to wait until 2040 to return the samples to Earth because the 2040s is “the decade that we’re going to be landing astronauts on Mars,” he reiterated during a Monday press conference.An $11 billion price tag for the program would cause NASA to cannibalize other science programs and missions, Nelson said..

The baseline requirement of the proposals is to return the 30 scientifically curated samples Perseverance has taken from a diverse set of locations, Fox said. “We are operating from the premise that this is an important national objective that we return the samples,” Nelson said. NASA shared a video of their Perseverance rover spotting this mile-high dust devil swirling across the Martian landscape on Aug. 30.NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in Pasadena, California, manages the Perseverance rover mission and other exploration endeavors on Mars.to meet the requirements of budget cuts. The new architecture that’s ultimately developed for the sample return mission will determine the scope of JPL’s management oversight, Nelson said.

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