Mars Sample Return under threat as Trump budget slashes NASA science

The Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission, a flagship NASA project designed to retrieve soil samples collected by the Perseverance rover on Mars and return them to Earth, faces cancellation under the Trump administration’s proposed FY26 budget. The mission, originally budgeted at over $7 billion and criticized by NASA’s Office of Inspector General for financial mismanagement and delays, has ballooned in cost estimates to potentially $11 billion. MSR is one of NASA’s most technically complex endeavors, involving landing a spacecraft near Perseverance’s sample caches, deploying a fetch rover, launching samples into Martian orbit, and transferring them to an orbiter for the journey back to Earth. In response to the budget threat, Lockheed Martin has proposed a significantly leaner, fixed-price alternative priced at $3 billion. This plan involves replacing existing spacecraft designs with lighter, proven models from previous planetary missions, aiming to reduce weight and thus fuel and overall costs. Lockheed Martin would absorb any cost overruns under this