NASA Looks To Private Industry To Save Mars Sample Return Mission

photomontage of sample tubes on Mars

A camera on the end of the Perseverance rover’s 7-ft. arm captured these images of sample tubes the rover deposited onto the surface of Mars. The tubes contain a backup collection of rock cores
and regolith that could be recovered as part of a sample-return campaign.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Scientists have spent decades on a strategic search to determine if life ever existed on Mars, the most Earth-like planet in the Solar System. Technology demonstrations paved the way for missions to search for signs of past water, followed by a hunt for habitable environments and conditions where...

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