Update: A minibus spending package passed by the House of Representatives on January 8, 2026, effectively cancels the Mars Sample Return program by eliminating almost all funding for future missions.

A question has intrigued astronomers for decades: are the moons of Mars, Phobos and Deimos, captured asteroids or fragments ...

NASA’s Perseverance rover has collected a sample from Mars that has textures “unlike anything we’ve ever seen before.” Known as “Silver Mountain,” the rock core has been sealed into a tube so it can ...

NASA's Perseverance Mars rover captured this image of a rocky area nicknamed "Cheyava Falls" on July 18, 2024, showing black "poppy seed" and larger "leopard spot" features. Researchers say a sample ...

NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover took this selfie, made up of 62 individual images, in July 2024. (NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS) A rock sample collected by NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover may contain ...

The year 2025 isn't even a week old and NASA is already gearing up for its first big announcement, this one about the agency's ambitious, yet beleaguered, Mars sample return mission. Today (Jan. 7), ...

Editor at Large For nearly half a century, NASA has been talking an awfully good game about its much-heralded Mars Sample Return (MSR) project. As long ago as 1978, the space agency requested funding ...

Perseverance took a selfie after filling a sample tube with a rock core from the arrowhead-shaped rock nicknamed Cheyava Falls. The small, dark hole in the rock is where the core sample was drilled.

NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover acquired this image of its 26th collected rock sample, named “Silver Mountain,” using its onboard Sample Caching System Camera, located inside the rover’s underbelly.

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

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla — NASA’s newest Mars rover has completed its first sample grab, tucking away the tube of rock for return to Earth. The Perseverance rover team confirmed last week’s successful ...