NASA Still Focused on Mars Sample Return

[Waspie_Dwarf]

Sample return remains focus of NASA's Mars program

Confined by budget pressures which forced NASA to pull out of Europe's ambitious ExoMars program, officials will decide by February how and when to kick off a multi-mission project to return Martian soil samples to Earth.

The sample return program could begin with a first launch as soon as 2018, but without more money in NASA's Mars budget, the scope of the mission will be limited to surveying the red planet from orbit.

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