NASA Plans New Review of Perseverance Mars Sample Return Options

NASA is establishing the Perseverance Sample Retrieval Architecture, or PSRA, to assess approaches for returning Perseverance’s collected Mars samples to Earth. Tiffany Morgan, director of NASA’s Mars Exploration Program, described the initiative at a virtual Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group meeting on November 9, 2026.

Key details

• The PSRA team will review mission requirements, lessons learned, available capabilities, and acquisition options before recommending an approach.
• Perseverance landed in Jezero Crater in February 2021. The rover has sealed samples, with some stored on the Martian surface and others aboard the rover.
• One assessment put a proposed sample-return mission at about $11 billion, with delivery in 2040. Another assessment estimated a return as early as 2035 for about $8 billion.
• China’s Tianwen-3 mission is described as using a lander, ascender, service capsule, orbiter, and Earth reentry module. Its reported plan targets a launch around 2028 on two Long March-5 rockets from Wenchang, Hainan, and a return of about 500 grams of Martian material in 2031.

NASA’s planning team is expected to begin work in January 2027 and deliver its report in winter 2027–2028.

Why it matters

Returned samples could help researchers assess Mars materials directly. Bruce Jakosky has advocated examining the samples for chemical and dust hazards that could inform planning for astronauts and spacecraft on future crewed missions.