Congress largely rejected the massive NASA cuts proposed earlier in 2025 and approved a fiscal year 2026 budget that kept ...

Congressional supporters of the Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission have buckled to pressure from the Trump administration to kill the centerpiece of NASA’s exploration plans over the next decade.

As stated in Chapter 8, the proper design and implementation of planetary protection measures will ultimately be critical to the overall success of martian sample-return missions. Mission success can ...

The complex MMX mission aims to shed light on the origins of Mars' two tiny moons, Phobos and Deimos, bringing Phobos material back to Earth in 2031.

The China National Space Administration (CNSA) announced the Tianwen 3, a daring Mars sample return mission to launch in 2028 ...

NASA has awarded a contract to build a testbed for optically guided rendezvous and docking in Mars orbit — a key technique that will be required for a Mars sample return mission. A sample return ...

Only companies that worked on the Mars Sample Return program need apply, narrowing the field to a handful of space industry heavyweights. NASA is looking for ways to improve the communications network ...

NASA aims to return Martian soil and rock samples to Earth in the 2030s, marking the first such planetary sample return mission. A decision on the mission profile is delayed until mid-2026. Two ...

NOTICE: The project that is the subject of this report was approved by the Governing Board of the National Research Council, whose members are drawn from the councils of the National Academy of ...

China's mission to retrieve samples from Mars will advance to the flight model development phase within this year, Liu Jizhong, chief designer of the Tianwen 3 mission, said on Thursday. Building on ...