#mars-sample-return

#mars-sample-return

US Congress has rejected plans to slash NASA's science budget, restoring most funding with one notable exception: Mars Sample Return remains cancelled. A joint explanatory statement was released earlier this month, and lawmakers have passed the bill. The legislation, passed with 82 senators voting for it, 15 against, and three abstaining, reverses an earlier proposal that would have cut NASA's overall budget by nearly 25 percent and halved science spending - potentially shutting down many active missions.

After a year of back and forth, the U.S. Senate on Wednesday confirmed Jared Isaacman, a tech billionaire who has paid to go to space twice, to head the space agency. His confirmation comes at a pivotal moment for NASA, which is under mounting pressure from both budget cuts and technical hurdles that together could scuttle its most ambitious missions.

Designing the system to return Mars samples to Earth at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory - the Southern California lab that pioneered American rocketry and the scientific exploration of our solar system - was her dream job. As she worked toward degrees in mechanical engineering, she watched JPL launches and became enamored with the photos the lab took on Mars.