NASA has effectively terminated its Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission, a flagship planetary science effort to retrieve rock and soil samples collected by the Perseverance rover from Mars' surface. The cancellation marks the end of one of NASA's most ambitious and costly interplanetary sample-return endeavors.
Background
The Mars Sample Return mission was a joint NASA-ESA effort originally budgeted at over $4 billion, designed to bring cached Martian samples back to Earth for detailed laboratory analysis. Perseverance has been depositing sealed sample tubes since 2021.
- Source
- Hacker News (RSS)
- Published
- Sep 22, 2026 at 03:14 AM
- Score
- 8.0 / 10