Nasa has unveiled a revised plan to bring samples from the surface of Mars back to Earth. The space agency has announced it would be pursuing two potential options, both costing around $7billion, to retrieve rock and soil samples currently being collected by the Perseverance rover - dramatically reducing the mission's cost from $11bn and

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.

NASA is pitching a cheaper and quicker way of getting rocks and soil back from Mars. Administrator Bill Nelson presented two options on Tuesday, less than two weeks before stepping down as NASA's chief.

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 will explore two different strategies for fetching Mars rocks collected by the Perseverance rover, and there's a chance these samples contain evidence of alien life.

NASA's mission to return samples from Mars and potentially discover the first signs of alien life has a new timeline. The samples may arrive sooner.

NASA will analyze and explore two different landing options for its Mars Sample Return program, though it will take almost two years to do so and is expected to announce its decision in late 2026. The agency had to temporarily hit pause on the program after an independent review found that it could cost between $8 billion and $11 billion,

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

NASA's Mars Sample Return mission is only in development and has already struggled. Now, the agency has laid out two paths forward.The Latest Tech News, Delivered to Your Inbox