NASA has announced the next steps for its beleaguered Mars Sample Return mission, the ambitious plans to retrieve multiple samples collected on the Red Planet, so they can be analyzed by more sophisticated labs on Earth.

Bringing Martian rock and soil samples to Earth is among the top priorities of planetary scientists. By studying fresh rocks up close with the latest, most powerful instruments in their laboratories,

After a long career as a politician from Florida, former astronaut Bill Nelson has served as NASA's administrator for the last three and a half years. He intends to resign from this position in about two weeks when President Joe Biden ends his term in the White House.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis wants NASA to relocate its headquarters from Washington, D.C., to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida's Brevard County.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson left a final decision on a new mission architecture to the next NASA administrator working under the incoming Trump administration. President-elect Donald Trump nominated entrepreneur and commercial astronaut Jared Isaacman as the agency's 15th administrator last month.

NASA hopes a revised plan will get Mars samples back to Earth faster and cost less than the agency's original plan.

In April, after an independent review found “near zero probability” of Mars Sample Return making its proposed 2028 launch date, NASA put out a request for alternative proposals to all of its centers and the private sector. JPL was forced to compete for what had been its own project.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson and Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy hosted a conversation with astronauts Nick Hague, Butch Wilmore, Suni Williams and

The agency is starting down two different paths toward the samples' return, but only one will bring the red rocks home.

Samples collected by Perseverance rover not expected until at least 2035, four years behind Tianwen-3’s ‘grab-and-go’ timetable.

Astronauts aboard the International Space Station, including Suni Williams, Nick Hague, Don Pettit, and Butch Wilmore, discussed life and work in microgravity with NASA leaders Bill Nelson and Pam Melroy.