NASA won't bring Mars samples back to Earth: this is the science that will be lost

"After years in limbo, NASA's groundbreaking Mars Sample Return (MSR) programme, which was supposed to ferry Martian material collected by the Perseverance rover to Earth, looks set to be cancelled. Earlier this week, a bipartisan group of US lawmakers passed a spending bill that axes the MSR programme, which would have been the first mission to bring Martian samples to Earth. The mission's demise did not come out of the blue."

"The ambitious project's estimated cost has ballooned, reaching US$11 billion in 2023 - similar to the amount it cost to build the James Webb Space Telescope. And early last year, NASA conceded that it still had no concrete plan to return the Martian samples to Earth. The administration of US President Donald Trump sought to cancel the MSR project and many other NASA science missions."

"Happily for many scientists, the bill restores funding for the vast majority of NASA space science missions that the administration's budget proposal had placed on the chopping block, such as the Habitable Worlds Observatory space telescope, which would search for signs of life on planets outside the Solar System. As a result, the bill, which still requires Senate approval, "is ultimately a good bill for NASA science", says Casey Dreier, chief of space policy at the Planetary Society, a non-profit organization in Pasadena, California."

The Mars Sample Return (MSR) programme faces cancellation after a bipartisan US spending bill reportedly axes the mission to return samples collected by the Perseverance rover. Project costs ballooned to about US$11 billion in 2023, and NASA had previously acknowledged lacking a concrete plan to retrieve the samples. The Trump administration had sought to cancel MSR along with other science missions. The spending bill restores funding for most NASA space science missions, including the Habitable Worlds Observatory, earning praise from some space-policy figures while disappointing scientists who supported MSR. The prospect of returning Martian samples and reviving the mission remains uncertain.

Read at Nature