China has laid out a timeline to retrieve surface samples from Mars within the next half-decade while similar ambitions in the U.S. have been sidelined by funding issues.
The robotic Tianwen-3 mission launching in 2028 would travel to the Red Planet, collect 500 grams (1.1 pounds) of samples and return them to Earth by 2031. The material would be analyzed in a specially designed laboratory in China’s eastern Anhui province that “guards both the returning Martian samples and Earth’s biosphere,” according to the government’s news agency. The ultimate aim of studying the samples is to determine whether Mars hosted life. At one time, the planet was covered with liquid water.
“Through detailed analysis of returned samples, scientists hope to find reliable bio-signatures,” Hou Zengqian of the Chinese Academy of Sciences said.
If the project materializes, China would eclipse efforts by NASA and the European Space Agency to return samples from Mars that have already been collected by NASA’s robotic rover, Perseverance.
NASA’s Mars Sample Return (MSR) program, the cost of which has ballooned in recent years, lost most of its funding early this year as part of broad federal budget cuts. Observers said the initiative is effectively dead, at least for the time being.
“It is difficult to understand how the cancellation of MSR is anything but an admission that returning samples from Mars is too hard for the United States,” space scientist Victoria Hamilton of the Southwest Research Institute said.
Rocks from Mars have landed on Earth as meteorites, but they are not considered as pristine as the samples that would be brought back from the Red Planet. (Yahoo News)
Monday, September 7, 2026