The Mars Future Plan

NASA’s Mars Exploration Program (MEP) is a science-driven, robotic-focused effort to characterize and understand Mars, including its current environment, climate and geological history, and biological potential, and to prepare for human exploration. Over the past two decades, MEP has made numerous scientific and technical breakthroughs by building on the entire history of Mars exploration to create and maintain a series of robotic missions, including orbiters, landers, rovers, and helicopter.

The Plan provides guidance and priorities for the next 20 years (2024–2044) of MEP’s science and robotic efforts and its role in achieving the nation’s ambitions at Mars. It is designed to be in alignment with the NASA Strategic Plan (2022) and the NASA Science Mission Directorate (SMD) Science Strategy (2023 version); NASA’s Moon to Mars Strategy and Objectives Development (2023); the current Planetary and Astrobiology Decadal Survey (Origins, Worlds, and Life: A Decadal Strategy for Planetary Science and Astrobiology 2023–2032) (2023); the Mars Exploration Program Plan (last approved in 2021); and multiple Mars science community reports. The MEP 2024–2044 Plan provides a strategic approach for a sustainable scientific program at Mars. This MEP Plan does not encompass Mars Sample Return (MSR), which is an independent program from MEP. At the time of the publishing of this document, MSR is undergoing architecture studies. This Plan does include the MEP responsibilities associated with the collection of samples by the Perseverance rover, as well as notional information regarding MEP’s responsibilities for the curation of MSR-returned samples, referred to as the Sample Receiving Project (SRP), which is currently on hold pending decisions on MSR. While this plan is complementary to and supportive of NASA’s Moon to Mars Strategy and Objectives Development (2023), it does not define or alter any aspects of NASA’s human exploration program.

This plan was developed in response to near-simultaneous findings in the Planetary and Astrobiology Decadal Survey (2023) and the NASA MEP Program Implementation Review (2021). These findings (see the following page of this report) both recommend MEP develop a comprehensive plan to consider missions, infrastructure, technology, and partnerships.