Can NASA Win the Mars Space Race

Critical Questions by Clayton Swope

Published September 24, 2024

In early September 2024, China announced that it planned to launch a mission to collect and return samples from the surface of Mars in 2028, positioning China to become the first nation returning material to Earth from another planet. This announcement follows public acknowledgement by NASA in April 2024 that its own Mars sample-return mission is over budget and behind schedule, with the projected launch date likely after 2030. While the world mostly focuses on the Moon Race 2.0, China stands on the precipice of becoming the first country to successfully return material from another planet to Earth. Without a significant redirection of effort and resources by the United States, China will beat all other nations to this tremendously momentous space milestone. But the United States still has a chance to win.

Q1: How did we get here?

A1: In 2011, an influential decadal report issued by the National Academies of the Sciences advised that NASA's top priority between 2013 and 2022 should be the development and execution of a mission in partnership with the European Space Agency (ESA) to return samples of the Martian surface to Earth. This recommendation influenced the development of the Perseverance rover, launched to Mars in 2020, which included a mission goal to collect and cache samples of the Martian surface for return to Earth by a future mission. Since landing on Mars in February 2021, the rover has collected 28 of 43 samples-stored in tubes-of the Martian surface for return to Earth. In 2022, NASA and ESA approved a multistage joint mission to retrieve the samples, deliver them to Mars orbit, and transport the samples back to Earth.

In September 2023, an independent review board concluded that NASA's Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission would cost $8 to $11 billion, though NASA had planned for it to cost less than $3 billion. Additionally, the board assessed that MSR would probably not launch before 2033, a five-year delay to the original timeline, meaning that the samples would probably not arrive on Earth until the 2040s. The board found that the program's ballooning costs and delays stemmed from several challenges, including unrealistic budget and schedule expectations, organizational complexity, communications inefficiencies, supply chain and workforce shortages, and a lack of clarity on organizational responsibilities.

Two months after the report's release, in November 2023, NASA paused work on MSR. In April 2024, NASA announced that a price tag of $11 billion and the adjusted timeline-returning Martian samples around 2040-was unacceptable. To reset the program, in April 2024, NASA sought input from industry on ways to both accelerate the timelines and reduce costs, selecting seven companies in June 2024 to begin studying mission alternatives.

Q2: What are China's Mars plans?

A2: On September 5, 2024, the lead designer for China's uncrewed Mars sample-return mission, called Tianwen-3, announced that the mission would launch on two heavy-lift Long March 5 rockets in 2028. Previously, Chinese space officials had publicly said that the launch could take place between 2028 and 2030 and that the mission duration would be approximately three years. This means that China would likely be able to return samples from Mars around 2031, well before NASA would have been able to return its own sample, even if NASA had stayed with its original plans. Given that China has a track record of sticking to publicly announced timelines for space missions, including for ambitious ones, like the recent Chang'e 6 mission that returned samples from the far side of the Moon, there is no reason to assume that Tianwen-3 will not launch in 2028 as announced.

Tianwen-3 would be China's second mission to Mars and part of the Tianwen robotic planetary exploration program aimed at exploring Jupiter, Mars, Venus, and a near-earth asteroid. China's first indigenous mission to Mars, Tianwen-1, which consisted of an orbiter, lander, and rover, was launched in February 2021, reaching Mars seven months later. After the Tianwen-1 lander and rover safely touched down on the Martian surface in May 2021, China became only the second nation, after the United States, to successfully soft-land an operational spacecraft on Mars. In addition to demonstrating the ability to reach and land on Mars, China has also shown the ability to build and operate sample-return missions, having successfully collected samples of the Moon and brought them to Earth during the Chang'e 5 mission in 2020 and Chang'e 6 in 2024.

Q3: What is at stake?

A3: No nation has ever collected samples of another planet and returned them to Earth, though a number of countries have successfully conducted sample-return missions to other celestial bodies. The United States became the first country to bring back a sample of another celestial body when the Apollo 11 astronauts returned to Earth with 22 kilograms of the lunar surface in 1969. Subsequently, both the Soviet Union and, later, China conducted missions that brought material from the Moon to Earth for analysis. In 2006, NASA successfully captured and returned samples of a comet to Earth. Both the United States and Japan have also completed sample-return missions from near-earth asteroids.

The stakes for a Mars sample-return mission are much higher than previous missions, not only because it would be the first sample of another planet sent back to Earth, but because it would be a sample from another world with an atmosphere and evidence of water. Mars is a place that experts believe might once have harbored life. A Mars sample-return would provide scientists an opportunity to closely study Martian materials for indications of whether life ever existed on Mars. Conclusive evidence that life originated somewhere other than Earth would be a scientific discovery that could rank higher than any other made in modern times and as one of the most consequential in human history. Even without evidence of life, analysis of Martian samples would likely provide new insights into the chemical composition and geologic history of Mars. Whoever first brings back a sample of Mars would have the chance to lead an international effort to make these discoveries.

In addition to the possibility of scientific breakthroughs, the return of material from Mars carries unquantifiable risks of contamination to the Earth environment. Materials from another planet, particularly one that might harbor life, must be hermetically isolated from contact with the environment on Earth until it can be fully analyzed and assessed. Should China accomplish the first Mars sample-return mission, responsibility for doing that and ensuring that the materials pose no risk of harm to life on Earth would rest with China. An incorrect determination on their safety could pose entirely unknown risks to Earth and humanity.

Q4: Can the United States still win this race?

A4: Turning to industry partners for help, NASA awarded contracts in June 2024 to seven companies-Lockheed Martin, SpaceX, Aerojet Rocketdyne, Blue Origin, Quantum Space, Northrop Grumman, and Whittinghill Aerospace-to develop proposals to accelerate the MSR timeline and lower its costs. Each company received a $1.5 million contract to conduct a 90-day study. NASA said it received 48 proposals in reply to its April 2024 solicitation.

Of the seven companies, only Lockheed Martin has successfully built a spacecraft that landed on Mars. Both Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman had already been working with NASA on MSR, so it would not be a surprise if their studies focus on accelerating the use of technologies already under development for the legacy mission. On the other hand, the title of the SpaceX proposal indicates that it would base the design of a sample-return mission on Starship. In addition to the seven companies, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and the Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University will also study how to lower MSR expected costs. Notably, JPL is the lead NASA center for MSR.

In addition to the results of these studies, the willingness of NASA and Congress to prioritize funding and resources for a revamped mission will likely determine whether the United States can accomplish a Mars sample-return before China. With support and funding, NASA can attempt to bring its plan back on track to beat China. In this race, the United States has one clear advantage that China does not: a space private sector with a history of game-changing innovation. By starting with studies, NASA seems poised to unleash them. Hopefully, NASA's next step is funding one or more innovative approaches to get to Mars and back. Perhaps this is an opportunity for a grand collaboration between the storied aerospace giants and disruptors, like SpaceX and Blue Origin, to produce a solution meeting the tight timeline. An accelerated Mars mission may also be an opportunity for the United States to leverage more space expertise and resources from international partners like Europe, Japan, Canada, and the United Arab Emirates.

In any case, this is an opportunity for NASA and U.S. industry to demonstrate that they have the right stuff and can pull off the hardest of the hard space challenges. Even more than Artemis, which aims to return Americans to the Moon, a feat the United States has already accomplished, a Mars sample-return mission could be NASA's modern defining achievement-full stop. Pulling off this mission before China would not be cheap, but it's a price worth paying. Failure to pay that price risks eroding national prestige and passing on the chance for possibly the greatest discovery in history-life on another planet-to China. Should that happen, for generations, Americans would look back on this moment in disappointment and wonder how such a history-making prize slipped away.

Clayton Swope is the deputy director of the Aerospace Security Project and a senior fellow in the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.

Programs & Projects