NASA says Mars samples that may contain signs of life are STUCK on the Red Planet… as it seeks private sector help to retrieve them

NASA officials have announced that they have no plan to return rock samples from Mars – which could contain signs of life – to Earth.

The agency’s Perseverance Rover has been exploring the Red Planet’s surface for more than three years, collecting rock and soil samples to provide evidence of life.

By all accounts, Perseverance has been successful in its monster-collecting mission, but getting those monsters back home is another story.

A recent report found that NASA’s original plan to return the samples would cost $11 billion. It has now concluded that the method would be too expensive and complicated, and so it is asking the private sector for help.

NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover captured this mosaic at a location nicknamed “Skrinkle Haven.” Scientists suspect that these bands were formed long ago by fast-flowing water.

When NASA launched the rover in 2020, the plan was to have Perseverance cache the samples so they could be retrieved by a Sample Retrieval Lander.

This lander, planned for launch in 2027 or 2028, would carry a rocket that could retrieve the samples from the planet, then orbit Mars until another spacecraft picked it up and brought it home to Earth .

But that plan, which was approved in 2022, has since run into a major problem: cuts to NASA.

Now they’re asking for proposals from private companies and the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory to come up with cheaper and faster ways to get the samples back to Earth.

NASA officials said the most likely way they would achieve their goal was by reusing “proven” technologies and strategies from previous missions, saving time and money over developing brand new technology.

Such “legacy” or “heritage” technology could be found in other NASA missions that landed on the surface of a distant planet or moon, NASA’s Science Mission Directorate Nicky Fox said at a news conference Monday.

“Whatever is already available is good to use,” she said.

Using technologies already in NASA’s space exploration toolbox would be cheaper, less risky and faster than trying to make a new technological leap.

The challenge, Fox said, is that NASA has never landed a spacecraft on another planet and then had it take off again.

At the same time, Fox and NASA administrator Bill Nelson dodged questions about why there was no feasible plan yet.

Nelson explained that a more acceptable price tag for a return mission to Mars would be between $5 and 7 billion, and suggested that budget cuts were to blame for NASA’s opposition to the $11 billion price tag.

And indeed, NASA’s 2024 and 2025 budgets took a major hit from the March cuts, which came as lawmakers tried to avoid a government shutdown.

As a result, Nelson said that if they were to move forward with an $11 billion Mars sample return mission, they would have to “cannibalize” the budgets of other NASA missions.

He also said that NASA has lost a total of $2.5 billion from its 2024 budget, including $1 billion from its science budget (the part of the budget that deals with research, as opposed to rockets).

Perseverance has collected carefully chosen samples from the surface of Mars. Some of them are carried around with them, while others are left in sample tubes like this one to be collected later.

This illustration shows a concept for NASA’s Mars Sample Return Program. It would involve Perseverance delivering samples to a lander, which would then send them back to Earth on another craft.

One of Perseverance’s big finds came earlier this year, when it explored an area that could provide some evidence of the life NASA is looking for.

The Perseverance rover examined the Jezero crater, where it identified sediments deposited by water, confirming speculation that the formation flowed with water three billion years ago.

Perseverance has collected samples from the surface of Mars, carefully chosen by scientists on Earth.

Some of these samples will be carried on the rover, while others will be left in sample tubes on the surface of Mars to be collected later.

The long-standing concept for the Mars Sample Return mission was that Perseverance would deliver samples to a lander, which would transfer them to a spacecraft that could fly into space and return to Earth.

Something similar could happen eventually, but for now the details of the plan are a big question mark.

Multiple reporters tried to ask Nelson and Fox why no viable plan had been put in place since the beginning of the Perseverance mission, and why heritage technology wasn’t a priority from the start.

But they rejected the questions or gave vague answers.

So far, the plan to return samples from Mars to Earth seemed set in stone.

But it isn’t.

A major goal of Perseverance’s mission on Mars is astrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life. NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover acquired this image using the onboard left navigation camera (Navcam).

“I’ve asked our people to reach out with a request for information to industry, to (the Jet Propulsion Laboratory) and to all NASA centers, and to report this fall an alternative plan that will get (the samples) back faster and cheaper Nelson said at the press conference on Monday.

The new direction for the Mars Sample Return Program is in response to a 2023 independent study that found “a near-zero chance” that NASA would meet the proposed 2028 launch date for the mission.

The report also said there is “no credible” way to take the samples home with the available funding.

The review board concluded that it would cost up to $11 billion to get the samples home, and at that price it wouldn’t be ready until 2040.

“The bottom line is that $11 billion is too expensive, and not returning samples until 2040 is unacceptably too long,” Nelson said. “It’s the decade of the 2040s that we’re going to land astronauts on Mars.”

Nelson claimed that there were those who argued that the program should be reset and the Perseverance samples should be given up, but he said it was too important to the US that they be returned.

For now, NASA has $310 million to spend on the mission this year.

NASA today opened the proposals, which would give research groups the tools to study sample return strategies.

The proposals are due May 17, and once the grants are awarded, the groups have 90 days to return their studies to NASA.

Fox and Nelson said a plan should be in place by late fall or early winter this year.

Perseverance will continue collecting samples for now, they said — as long as it remains healthy.