The Perseverance rover’s 2021 selfie with the Ingenuity rotorcraft
A map showing where NASA’s Perseverance dropped ten samples
© NASA
NASA’s Mars Sample Return program has hit several snags in recent months after being N told its current $11 billion (£8.64 billion) plan is too expensive. The existing Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission plan would require multiple launches to Mars in order to eventually place a Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV) on the Red Planet’s surface. From there, either the Perseverance rover or other small retrieval helicopters – similar to NASA’s Ingenuity rotorcraft – would pick up Mars samples that Perseverance has already collected and load them into the MAV. Then an ascender would launch the samples up to orbit, where a spacecraft would collect them and haul them back toward Earth.