During a media briefing on Tuesday, NASA announced an unusual approach to its ambitious Martian sample mission.
The space agency will simultaneously pursue two different ways of brining samples from the other world to Earth.
The sample container will hold 30 tubes.
NASA’s Perseverance rover collected samples from Mars and stored them in tubes.NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
We want to bring those back as quickly as possible to study them in state-of-the-art facilities.
The mission was originally capped at a $7 billion budget to return the samples in the 2030s.
In light of the report, NASA beganconsidering an alternative architecture for its complex mission.
Despite its complexities, Mars Sample Return is an unprecedented opportunity to study samples from another world up-close.
This will also prepare us to safely send the first human explorers to Mars.
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