Mars Sample Return

Mars Sample Return would be NASA’s most ambitious, multi-mission campaign that would bring carefully selected Martian samples to Earth for the first time.

future Mission

Mission Concept

Mars Rock Samples

New Team to Assess NASA’s Mars Sample Return Architecture Proposals

Mars Sample Return (MSR) would be NASA's and ESA’s (European Space Agency) ambitious, multi-mission campaign to bring carefully selected samples to Earth. MSR would fulfill one of the highest priority solar system exploration goals from the science community. Returned samples would revolutionize our understanding of Mars, our solar system and prepare for human explorers to the Red Planet.

Type

Sample Return

partner

European Space Agency

destinations

Mars and Earth

Objective

Bring Mars samples collected by the Perseverance rover to Earth

FEATURED

Intriguing Mars Rock: Scientist's Conference Talk on Mars Sample Return

Ken Farley, project scientist for NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover mission, shared information about a new discovery that is “the most puzzling, complex, and potentially important rock yet investigated by Perseverance.”

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What is a Potential Biosignature?

NASA program scientist Lindsay Hays explains what defines potential signs of ancient life on other worlds and why they require future study. NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover is searching for these signs, collecting samples for future return to Earth, and helping pave the way for human exploration. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Seeking Innovative Designs

On April 15, 2024, NASA announced the agency’s path forward for the Mars Sample Return campaign to seek innovative designs that will lower cost, risk, and mission complexity. To achieve this goal, the agency has asked the NASA community to work together to develop a revised plan that leverages innovation and proven technology, as well as soliciting architecture proposals from industry that could return samples to Earth in the 2030s.

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NASA

Landing Site: Jezero Crater

Jezero Crater tells a story of the on-again, off-again nature of the wet past of Mars. More than 3.5 billion years ago, river channels spilled over the crater wall and created a lake. Scientists see evidence that water carried clay minerals from the surrounding area into the crater lake. Conceivably, microbial life could have lived in Jezero during one or more of these wet times. If so, signs of their remains might be found in lakebed or shoreline sediments. The Sample Retrieval Lander would land near the Perseverance rover's landing site in Jezero Crater.

NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover used one of its navigation cameras to take this image of flat terrain in Jezero Crater. This is one possible site that NASA may consider for a Mars Sample Return lander that would collect Perseverance’s samples of Mars rock and sediment in the future.

NASA/JPL-Caltech

Discover Mars

NASA/JPL-Caltech

Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun, and the seventh largest. Scientists seek to understand whether Mars was, is, or can be, a habitable world. To find out, we need to understand how geologic, climatic, and other processes have worked to shape Mars and its environment over time, as well as how they interact today.