Government contractGovernment contract

Mars Sample Return (MSR) Lifecycle Cost Estimate — programme cancelled

$5.3B–$11B (historical estimate; cancelled Jan 2026)

as of 2026-06-28^[1]

Range spans optimized architecture (post-2024 redesign) to original estimate, per NASA Architecture Review Board 2024. The January 2026 FY26 appropriation cancelled the NASA-ESA MSR campaign but did not zero all Mars funding — it redirected ~$110M into a new 'Mars Future Missions' program continuing MSR-derived radar, spectroscopy, and entry/descent/landing (EDL) precursor technologies. Perseverance's 33 cached samples have no NASA-ESA retrieval plan; China's Tianwen-3 (2028 launch, ~2031 return) is now the leading active sample-return path

Tied to program: Mars Sample Return

The cited figure

$5.3B–$11B (historical estimate; cancelled Jan 2026)as of 2026-06-28^[1]Range spans optimized architecture (post-2024 redesign) to original estimate, per NASA Architecture Review Board 2024. The January 2026 FY26 appropriation cancelled the NASA-ESA MSR campaign but did not zero all Mars funding — it redirected ~$110M into a new 'Mars Future Missions' program continuing MSR-derived radar, spectroscopy, and entry/descent/landing (EDL) precursor technologies. Perseverance's 33 cached samples have no NASA-ESA retrieval plan; China's Tianwen-3 (2028 launch, ~2031 return) is now the leading active sample-return path