NASA says Mars samples that may contain signs of life are STUCK on Red Planet... as it calls on private sector's help retrieving them

NASA officials have announced that they don't have a plan for bringing Martian rock samples - which could contain signs of life - back to Earth.

The agency's Perseverance Rover has been exploring the surface of the Red Planet for more than three years, collecting rock and soil samples to provide evidence of life. 

By all accounts, Perseverance has been successful in its mission of collecting samples — but getting these samples back home is a different story. 

A recent report showed that NASA's original plan to return the samples would cost $11 billion. It has now concluded that method would be too expensive and complicated - so it's asking the private sector for help.

NASA's Perseverance Rover landed on Mars in February 2021, and it has been collecting samples since then.

NASA's Perseverance Mars rover captured this mosaic at a location nicknamed 'Skrinkle Haven.' Scientists suspect these bands may have been formed by fast-moving water long ago. 

When NASA launched the rover in 2020, it planned to have Perseverance cache the samples for pickup by a Sample Retrieval Lander.

This lander, which had been planned for launch in 2027 or 2028, would carry a rocket that could get the samples off-planet, then orbit Mars until another craft picked it up and brought it home to Earth.

But that plan, approved in 2022, has since hit a major snag: NASA budget cuts.

Now they are soliciting proposals from private companies and the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory to come up with cheaper and quicker ways to get the samples back to Earth. 

NASA officials said that the most likely way they would achieve their goal was by repurposing 'tried and true' technologies and strategies from previous missions, saving time and money over developing brand new tech.

READ MORE: NASA finds evidence of an ancient lake that may have bred microbial lifeforms 3 billion years ago

The Perseverance rover has been exploring the Jezero Crater (pictured) where it identified sediments deposited by water, confirming speculations that the formation was flowing with water three billion years ago 

Such 'legacy' or 'heritage' technology could be found in other NASA missions that landed on the surface of a distant planet or moon, said NASA's Science Mission Directorate Nicky Fox in a press conference on Monday.

'Anything already available is good to use,' she said. 

Using technologies already in NASA's space exploration toolbox would be cheaper, less risky, and quicker than trying to achieve some new technological leap.

The challenge, said Fox, is that NASA has never landed a spacecraft on another planet and then had it take off again. 

At the same time, Fox and NASA administrator Bill Nelson evaded questions about why there was no feasible plan in place yet.

Nelson explained that a more acceptable price tag for a Mars sample return mission would be in the $5-7 billion range, and suggested that budget cuts were to blame for NASA balking at the $11 billion price tag.

And indeed, NASA's 2024 and 2025 budgets were dealt a serious blow by the March budget cuts that came as lawmakers sought to avoid a government shutdown.

As a result, Nelson said moving forward with an $11 billion Mars sample return mission would require them to 'cannibalize' the budgets of other NASA missions.

He also said that NASA lost a total of $2.5 billion from its 2024 budget, including $1 billion from its science budget (the part of the budget that deals with research, as opposed to rocketry).

Perseverance has been collecting carefully chosen samples from the surface of Mars. Some of them it carries with it, while others are left in sample tubes like this one for later collection. 

This illustration shows a concept for NASA's Mars Sample Return Program. It would involve Perseverance delivering samples to a lander, which would then send them back to Earth on a different craft.

One of Perseverance's big finds came earlier this year, when it explored an area that could offer some of the evidence of life NASA is looking for.

The Perseverance rover has been exploring the Jezero Crater where it identified sediments deposited by water, confirming speculations that the formation was flowing with water three billion years ago. 

Perseverance has been collecting samples from the surface of Mars, carefully chosen by scientists on Earth. 

Some of these samples are carried along on the rover, while others are left in sample tubes on the Martian surface for later collection. 

The long-held concept for the Mars Sample Return mission was that Perseverance would deliver samples to a lander, which would transfer them into a spacecraft that could launch into space and head back to Earth.

Something like this may end up happening, but for now, the specifics of the plan are a big question mark. 

Multiple reporters attempted to ask Nelson and Fox why there had not been a feasible plan in place since the beginning of the Perseverance mission, and why heritage tech was not a priority from the outset.

But they either deflected the questions or gave vague answers. 

Until now, the plan for returning samples to Earth from Mars had seemed settled.

But it is not. 

A key objective for Perseverance's mission on Mars is astrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life. NASA's Mars Perseverance rover acquired this image using its onboard Left Navigation Camera (Navcam).

'I have asked our folks to reach out with a request for information to industry, to [the Jet Propulsion Laboratory] and to all NASA centers, and to report back this fall an alternate plan that will get [the samples] back quicker and cheaper,' Nelson said in Monday's press conference.

The new direction for the Mars Sample Return Program is in response to an independent review conducted in 2023 that showed 'a near zero probability' that NASA could hit the proposed 2028 launch date for the mission.

The report also said there is 'no credible' way to bring the samples home with the available funding. 

The review board concluded that it would cost up to $11 billion to get the samples home, and that it wouldn't get done until 2040 at that price. 

'The bottom line is that $11 billion is too expensive, and not returning samples until 2040 is unacceptably too long,' Nelson said. 'It's the decade of the 2040s that we're going to be landing astronauts on Mars.' 

Nelson claimed that there were people arguing the program should be zeroed out and that the Perseverance samples should be abandoned, but he said it was too important to the US that they be returned.

For now, NASA has $310 million to devote to the mission this year. 

NASA opened up the proposals today, which would grant research groups the funds to study sample return strategies.

Proposals are due May 17, and once the grants are awarded, the groups will have 90 days to return their studies to NASA.

Fox and Nelson said there should be a plan by late fall or early winter of this year. 

Perseverance will continue collecting samples for now, they said - as long as it stays healthy.