NASA seeks cheaper ideas for Mars sample return mission amid budget crunch

NASA is seeking a cheaper, simpler approach to one of its top science priorities in the midst of a budget crunch - retrieving precious soil samples collected on Mars and flying them back to Earth, US space agency officials said on Monday.. A formal request for proposals will go out on Tuesday to various NASA centres and laboratories, as well as to space industry companies, asking how to revamp a program mired in technical complexities, spending constraints and ballooning costs, according to NASA executives...

Agency officials said in a conference call with reporters they expect alternative plans submitted for review this fall or early winter...

The JPL-built robotic rover Perseverance has been collecting mineral samples since 2021 from the floor of an ancient Martian lake bed called Jezero Crater and sealing the material inside tubes destined for future lab analysis seeking possible signs of fossilized microbes...

The missions next phase, in partnership with the European Space Agency, envisions sending a second robotic landing craft to Mars to retrieve the samples and launching them into Martian orbit for rendezvous with a third spacecraft that would fly them back to Earth...

The bottom line is an $11 billion budget is too expensive, and a 2040 return date is too far away, NASA chief Bill Nelson said.. Continuing on at such high funding levels also would eat into other major NASA science objectives, such as a planned rotorcraft exploration of Saturns icy moon Titan, two upcoming missions to Venus, and near-Earth object surveyor, Nelson said.. NASA officials left open the possibility of leaving behind some of the 30-plus samples that Perseverance is expected to collect..

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