Page 3 - Mars Sample News Today

The Perseverance has been filling collecting samples on Mars, awaiting the day when they will be taken back to Earth. But, if NASA does not have proper funding, the samples might never make it to Earth, writes Jonathan Lunine.

"Naturally, we have to make hard choices."

News of layoffs at JPL are sending shudders through the space community. What does it mean for upcoming missions like Mars Sample Return?

NASA's Layoffs Cause Uncertainty for Mars Sample Return Mission - World Report Now

A rover collects samples, future Mars Sample Return missions will retrieve them, and perhaps a robotic dog will play fetch somewhere along the way.

An edited transcript of an interview with Orlando Figueroa, chair of the independent review team that evaluated NASA's Mars Sample Return program.

The probes, designed for a 90-day mission, operated for years and changed the way scientists study Mars and the solar system.

Every flight NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter makes across Mars is a minor miracle. A communications glitch means uncertainty for the mission.

NASA currently has Mars sample return as their priority flagship mission not just for this decade but for the next one as well. They were recommended to do this in the 2012 decadal review. It is good for geology, nobody doubts that. But it is motivated mainly by the search for ancient life on Mars.

There aren't many close-up, high-resolution images of the ice giants Uranus and Neptune. The reason comes down to distance.