NASA terminates Mars Sample Return after independent review pegs cost at $11B and 2040 delivery

The decision ends the 2020–2024 architecture that paired NASA’s Sample Retrieval Lander and ESA’s Earth Return Orbiter. Congressional appropriators had capped annual spending at $310 million in FY2025, below the $830 million required for the original timeline. Internal NASA documents show the agency rejected three descoped options that still exceeded $6.5 billion.

Independent analysis by the Planetary Science Division and the Aerospace Corporation confirmed the original 2028 launch window was unrecoverable. Perseverance currently holds 24 sample tubes; without a funded retrieval mission, those tubes remain on the surface with no near-term recovery path. ESA’s contribution, valued at €1.2 billion, is now in formal renegotiation.

Resource reallocation shifts $2.1 billion over five years to Dragonfly and two competed Mars Scout missions. The cancellation removes the only approved mechanism for returning Martian material under current decadal survey priorities. No replacement architecture has received new start approval.

Future sample return now depends on a competed commercial or international proposal cycle no earlier than 2026. NASA’s FY2026 budget request contains no line item for MSR continuation.