NASA Administrator Bill Nelson left a final decision on a new mission architecture to the next NASA administrator working under the incoming Trump administration. President-elect Donald Trump nominated entrepreneur and commercial astronaut Jared Isaacman as the agency's 15th administrator last month.

To maximize chances of successfully bringing the first Martian rock and sediment samples to Earth for the benefit of humanity, NASA announced Tuesday a new approach to its Mars Sample Return Program.

NASA's beleaguered Mars Sample Return program currently faces extreme costs of up to $11 billion and a timeline that could reach 2040.

NASA hopes a revised plan will get Mars samples back to Earth faster and cost less than the agency's original plan.

The Mars Sample Return mission has been ranked as the highest priority by planetary scientists, who hope to find signs of ancient life on Mars.

Anyone hoping for a clear path forward this year for NASA's imperiled Mars Sample Return mission will have to wait a little longer.

The space agency will provide a broadcast update on the marquee mission that is intended to recover samples of Martian rock for study on Earth.

The Perseverance rover has been collecting Martian rock samples since 2021, but NASA is still figuring out how to bring them back to Earth.

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

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 proposes a quicker, cost-effective plan to bring Mars samples to Earth by 2030, reducing the mission cost from $11 billion to around $7 billion.