Universe Today
It looks like NASA's Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission has come to a bureaucratic end. The mission was to be the crowning achievement in the study of Mars and all the questions surrounding its ancient habitability. But the US Congress has drastically cut the mission's funding.
Despite decades of study and technological improvement and innovation, the issue of Martian habitability has been difficult to solve. MSL Curiosity and Perseverance have widened and deepened our understanding of the planet, and have provided tantalizing evidence for warm, wet periods on Mars conducive to life. But the next step was to return Martian rock samples to Earth, where the investigative power of modern labs could be brought to bear on them.
As far back as 2011, returning samples from Mars was recognized as a high priority in NASA's planetary science endeavours. Even today, NASA's webpage for MSR states that "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."
The Perseverance rover was the first stage of the mission, and it has performed exceptionally well. The rover has gathered and cached 33 sample tubes of interesting rocks and dust, ready for retrieval by the MSR. Now, the fate of those samples is unclear.
NASA knew that they were in tough territory. The estimated cost to retrieve the samples ballooned to 11 billion dollars. After working on new mission architectures, they were able to get the estimated cost down to about 7 billion dollars. But those were just estimates, and because it's such an unprecedented mission, there was a clear lack of certainty around those numbers.
The issue is money. There's heavy pressure on NASA to reduce its budget, and although Congress refused to reduce it as severely as the President wanted, something had to give. Since the MSR still required large amounts of money, and since the technology to achieve it still wasn't clear, it was the obvious choice for cancellation. It became a high-profile political football, not just a science mission.
The mission was extremely complex. The current design involved sending a lander to the surface. Perseverance would deliver the sample tubes to the lander, and if that were not possible, a pair of small sample return helicopters would do the job. The lander also had a rocket which would carry the samples to Martian orbit. From there, it would rendezvous with an orbiting spacecraft that would send the samples back to Earth. To say this was a complex undertaking is an understatement.
*This artwork from 2022 shows the conceived mission architecture. Image Credit: By NASA/ESA/JPL-Caltech - https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA25326 (image link), Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=121171927*
But isn't NASA all about American ingenuity and the spirit of exploration and adventure? You can't lead in science without money, and it's hard to argue that President Trump's request to inflate the USA's military budget to an unprecedented degree didn't have something do with NASA's budget cuts. He asked for 1.5 trillion dollars of military spending, a profligate 50% increase.
The budget still provides some money for developing technology related to further exploration of Mars, but only a small amount.
The wording is clear in a document titled DIVISION A - COMMERCE, JUSTICE, SCIENCE, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2026.
"As proposed in the budget, the agreement does not support the existing Mars Sample Return (MSR) program. However, the technological capabilities being developed in the MSR program are not only critical to the success of future science missions but also to human exploration of the Moon and Mars."
It continues: "Therefore. the agreement provides the request of $110,000,000 for the Mars Future Missions program, including existing MSR efforts, to support radar, spectroscopy, entry, descent, and landing systems, and translational precursor technologies that will enable science missions for the next decade, including lunar and Mars missions."
*Perseverance's cached samples await retrieval on the Martian surface. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS*
It's possible that some of that money will lead to new technologies, and a more budget-friendly way of retrieving the cached samples. But that is far from certain. It's also possible that technology will be developed that can study the samples effectively on the surface and returning them to Earth won't be necessary. But the technology in Earthly labs will advance at the same rate. It's difficult to conceive how studying them on Mars will ever be as effective as studying them on Earth.
Politics can't be ignored in this issue. NASA was teaming up with the ESA on this mission. But with the current administration's threats against European countries and the EU, which include using military force to sieze Greenland—otherwise known as war—that cooperation is likely dead. Maybe never to be revived.
The future is always unwritten and unknown. Maybe the MSR will be revived at some point in the future. Maybe the ESA will go it alone. China has plans for a Mars sample return mission, and now the path is clear for them to be the first to return Martian samples to Earth. However, their mission is not as sophisticated as the NASA/ESA mission. While Perseverance's samples are carefully chosen for maximum science benefit, China's mission is more of a grab and go endeavour.
Fortunately, the sample tubes are likely to sit there waiting for a long time, unlikely to be degraded in Mars' cold, dry environment. But for scientists who have put their hearts and minds into this ambitious mission, the news must be crushing.