Rock samples have been lying for several years in sealed tubes directly on the surface of the Red Planet. They were supposed to be retrieved by a joint program that was left without funding. It is now unclear whether they will ever reach Earth at all.
A Decision Without Guarantees
Professor of Astrobiology at the University of Edinburgh Charles Cockell said in an interview with Universe Space Tech that there is currently no guarantee that soil samples will be returned from Mars. Funding for a number of NASA programs was cut, and the Mars Sample Return program was affected by these reductions.
Rock and soil in Jezero Crater were collected using the Perseverance rover and sealed in tubes. The samples currently remain on Mars. The project under which this cargo was supposed to be lifted into orbit and delivered to Earth has been canceled.
Charles Cockell himself puts it simply. The material has been collected, it is lying on Mars, but what happens to it next is unknown.
Congressional Decision
In the fiscal year 2026 budget process, Congress did not restore support for the existing architecture, retaining only part of the related technology work within the framework of future Mars missions. As Space writes, part of the scientific community had previously opposed shutting down the program.
This is not a pause but the dismantling of a specific plan under which two spacecraft were supposed to fly to retrieve the container with the collected material. Without it, the soil in Jezero Crater remains a scientific resource to which no one has access.
China’s Schedule
China, meanwhile, is moving according to its own schedule. Charles Cockell notes that the mission there will focus on landing at a single site and returning several samples, meaning a much smaller amount than that collected by the Perseverance rover.
The launch of Tianwen-3 is planned for around 2028, with the return of the payload to Earth scheduled for 2031. The mission architecture calls for two separate launches, drilling to a depth of up to two meters, and the return of at least 500 grams of Martian samples.
The ground segment of the program is also being prepared. A planetary protection laboratory for receiving extraterrestrial material is already being designed, according to CGTN.
Who Will Study the Material
Any batch of Martian material will first be placed in a high-containment facility. There it will be checked for the presence of active microorganisms, and only afterward will it be released to the broader scientific community.
Competition for access then begins. Charles Cockell explains that many researchers want to study Martian material, while the amount available is small, so only laboratories with the appropriate equipment and clean-room conditions will be able to work with it.
According to him, the necessary equipment is also available at the University of Edinburgh. He says that studying Martian rock would be fantastic, although he assumes that his colleagues rather than he personally would carry out such work.
Foreign laboratories have already received access to Chinese extraterrestrial material. CNSA granted access to lunar soil from the Chang’e-5 mission through a competitive application process, with institutions from the United Kingdom and the United States among those selected. Five international projects have already been chosen for Tianwen-3, but they concern instruments carried aboard the mission. The procedure for distributing the Martian material itself has not yet been announced.
