My brother in law (JPL) was telling me about this earlier in August. Big letdown but he assured me that they'll come back to earth some day ... just gonna sit up there a long time.
This article only obliquely mentions in the last paragraphs, but there's a parallel Chinese program that recently brought back samples from the moon, and will attempt Mars sample return, launching in 2028,
Anyone wanting to be involved in the future of scientific research should probably start learning Mandarin. We're going the way of the Soviets, where political officers will quash any science that doesn't fit their ideology.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/09/trump-planning-to-ha...
I think that the scientific community really doesn't care about who will bring the samples back, but simply wheter someone will do it and share them with the world
The NASA/ESA MSR was of substantially higher quality, mind you. The M2020 rover specifically picked up samples of high scientific value to be returned. The Chinese return mission will only return what it finds from its direct landing site.
"Profit" is too generous a motive. It didn't service the Big Man's ego, so it's gone. That they can do some damage by killing it just makes it sweeter. Trump is Teemu Saruman.
This is so disappointing. The closest thing we ever discovered to life on other planets and the US won't even put 0.5% of budget towards retrieving it.
Or we could look at the utterly stupid things, like maybe stop having a failed war in Iran, and just not pay for those? Thats a very big chunk of budget. As a bonus it would bring gas prices down, reduce future spending in VA and other combat veteran costs, and just possible help make the case for reducing the size and expense of our military (while still maintaining the 2 largest air forces in the world).
I never really understood why you'd have Perseverance drill the cores and then just leave them on the ground for an underdefined future mission to retrieve.
Who are these "powers that be"? And do they have an infinite credit card? Could they really just do whatever they want and for some reason they choose not to?
Knowing Jared Isaacman, he won't let MSR die without a fight. It wouldn't shock me to see NASA consider Rocket Lab's MSR proposal; they had submitted a pretty affordable proposal some time ago.
I worked on (a very small part of) the ExoMars rover (now called the Rosalind Franklin[0]).
It was supposed to launch in 2018, then was pushed to the early 2020s on a Russian rocket. For obvious reasons, it got pushed again, now launching in 2028.
The state of the world isn't great for space exploration, but I'm hopeful this mission will be revived at some point in the future.
As an outsider who is very interested in space exploration I'm very flummoxed by the state of space exploration.
With the price of launches so low compared to only 20 years ago due to advancements in launch technology and the increased cadence of launches it seems like it should be easier to do these kinds of missions and that there should be more, cheaper missions that are willing to take risks because the per mission cost is so much lower.
Can you comment on why that doesn't seem to be happening? Why aren't we covering Mars in cheap rovers and satellites?
https://archive.is/YYx0d
My brother in law (JPL) was telling me about this earlier in August. Big letdown but he assured me that they'll come back to earth some day ... just gonna sit up there a long time.
This article only obliquely mentions in the last paragraphs, but there's a parallel Chinese program that recently brought back samples from the moon, and will attempt Mars sample return, launching in 2028,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tianwen-3
It's not that there will be no Mars sample retrieval for humanity; it's rather that NASA has (?) given up on being the one to do it first.
it's just that NASA has given up on being the one to do it first.
No need to. Mars delivers:
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/20/arts/who-owns-this-chunk-...
Anyone wanting to be involved in the future of scientific research should probably start learning Mandarin. We're going the way of the Soviets, where political officers will quash any science that doesn't fit their ideology. https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/09/trump-planning-to-ha...
I think that the scientific community really doesn't care about who will bring the samples back, but simply wheter someone will do it and share them with the world
The NASA/ESA MSR was of substantially higher quality, mind you. The M2020 rover specifically picked up samples of high scientific value to be returned. The Chinese return mission will only return what it finds from its direct landing site.
It's not like they're going to do it only once though, and some is a lot more then zero.
I think the Trump admin decided since it will not make them a profit, like other scientific research already canceled, it is not worth doing.
"Profit" is too generous a motive. It didn't service the Big Man's ego, so it's gone. That they can do some damage by killing it just makes it sweeter. Trump is Teemu Saruman.
This is so disappointing. The closest thing we ever discovered to life on other planets and the US won't even put 0.5% of budget towards retrieving it.
That would be a MASSIVE portion of the budget for a single discretionary item.
I guess I should clarify, I meant 0.5% to NASA in general. Right now it's 0.33%. In 2002 it was 0.72%.
We cannot cancel anything ever because each program is only 0.001% of the federal budget. To do so would be stingy.
Or we could look at the utterly stupid things, like maybe stop having a failed war in Iran, and just not pay for those? Thats a very big chunk of budget. As a bonus it would bring gas prices down, reduce future spending in VA and other combat veteran costs, and just possible help make the case for reducing the size and expense of our military (while still maintaining the 2 largest air forces in the world).
I never really understood why you'd have Perseverance drill the cores and then just leave them on the ground for an underdefined future mission to retrieve.
Because the powers that be would have deemed a real plan as too expensive.
Who are these "powers that be"? And do they have an infinite credit card? Could they really just do whatever they want and for some reason they choose not to?
Perseverance, obivously, has onboard instruments to analize the samples before dumping them on the ground
My bet is that the new Trump-flavored NASA still wants to do this, but without the Europeans.
Knowing Jared Isaacman, he won't let MSR die without a fight. It wouldn't shock me to see NASA consider Rocket Lab's MSR proposal; they had submitted a pretty affordable proposal some time ago.
I worked on (a very small part of) the ExoMars rover (now called the Rosalind Franklin[0]).
It was supposed to launch in 2018, then was pushed to the early 2020s on a Russian rocket. For obvious reasons, it got pushed again, now launching in 2028.
The state of the world isn't great for space exploration, but I'm hopeful this mission will be revived at some point in the future.
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosalind_Franklin_(rover)
I'm curious to know on which part you worked on, could you tell us?
As an outsider who is very interested in space exploration I'm very flummoxed by the state of space exploration.
With the price of launches so low compared to only 20 years ago due to advancements in launch technology and the increased cadence of launches it seems like it should be easier to do these kinds of missions and that there should be more, cheaper missions that are willing to take risks because the per mission cost is so much lower.
Can you comment on why that doesn't seem to be happening? Why aren't we covering Mars in cheap rovers and satellites?
Howtown had a video on this a few weeks ago:
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvCgC1yA7_w
That article is from January 6 2026. Not sure why it is being surfaced now.