An illustration showing an early and costly concept for multiple robots that would team up to ferry to Earth samples collected from the Mars surface by NASA's now-on-duty Perseverance rover. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)
NASA's Perseverance Mars rover has been on the prowl within Jezero Crater following its touchdown in February 2021. That car-sized robot has been devotedly picking up select specimens from across the area, gingerly deploying those sealed pick-me-ups on the Red Planet's surface, as well as stuffing them inside itself. Those collectibles may well hold signs of past life on that enigmatic, dusty and foreboding world.
NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) have for years been intently plotting out plans to send future spacecraft to Mars and haul those Perseverance-plucked bits, pieces, and sniffs of atmosphere to Earth for rigorous inspection by state-of-the-art equipment.
But President Trump's Fiscal Year 2026 proposed budget blueprint issued on May 2 by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) calls for a 24.3 percent reduction to NASA's top-line funding and could slashing the space agency's science budget by 47 percent. A casualty stemming from this projected budget bombshell is the Mars Sample Return (MSR) venture.
In fact, MSR is tagged in the White House's proposed 2026 budget as "grossly over budget and whose goals would be achieved by human missions to Mars," explaining that MSR is not scheduled to return samples until the 2030s.
The preliminary White House budget says its intent is in line with the Administration's objectives of "returning to the moon before China and putting a man on Mars," with the budget reducing lower priority research and terminating unaffordable missions such as MSR.
But some experts say that the mission still has a wealth of scientific and spaceflight returns to offer that are in line with the administration's push to put humans on Mars.
Sticker shock
To understand why that mission got so costly, we must look to spaceflight history courtesy of John Connolly, a 36-year NASA veteran that directed human lunar and Mars mission designs. He is now professor of practice at Texas A&M University's Department of Aerospace Engineering.
NASA's Perseverance Mars rover has been on the prowl within Jezero Crater following its touchdown in February 2021. That car-sized robot has been devotedly picking up select specimens from across the area, gingerly deploying those sealed pick-me-ups on the Red Planet's surface, as well as stuffing them inside itself. Those collectibles may well hold signs of past life on that enigmatic, dusty and foreboding world.
NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) have for years been intently plotting out plans to send future spacecraft to Mars and haul those Perseverance-plucked bits, pieces, and sniffs of atmosphere to Earth for rigorous inspection by state-of-the-art equipment.
But President Trump's Fiscal Year 2026 proposed budget blueprint issued on May 2 by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) calls for a 24.3 percent reduction to NASA's top-line funding and could slashing the space agency's science budget by 47 percent. A casualty stemming from this projected budget bombshell is the Mars Sample Return (MSR) venture.
You may likeIn fact, MSR is tagged in the White House's proposed 2026 budget as "grossly over budget and whose goals would be achieved by human missions to Mars," explaining that MSR is not scheduled to return samples until the 2030s.
The preliminary White House budget says its intent is in line with the Administration's objectives of "returning to the moon before China and putting a man on Mars," with the budget reducing lower priority research and terminating unaffordable missions such as MSR.
But some experts say that the mission still has a wealth of scientific and spaceflight returns to offer that are in line with the administration's push to put humans on Mars.
Sticker shock
To understand why that mission got so costly, we must look to spaceflight history courtesy of John Connolly, a 36-year NASA veteran that directed human lunar and Mars mission designs. He is now professor of practice at Texas A&M University's Department of Aerospace Engineering.