The Mars Sample Return program has been way over budget and, according to NASA's administrator, has been "out of control." Now, the agency is exploring new options to get its Martian rock and dust samples back home to Earth.

Anyone hoping for a clear path forward this year for NASA's imperiled Mars Sample Return mission will have to wait a little longer.

The Mars Sample Return mission has been ranked as the highest priority by planetary scientists, who hope to find signs of ancient life on Mars.

The Perseverance rover has been collecting Martian rock samples since 2021, but NASA is still figuring out how to bring them back to Earth.

NASA is pitching a cheaper and quicker way of getting rocks and soil back from Mars, after seeing its original plan swell to $11 billion. Administrator Bill Nelson presented a revised scenario Tuesday,

NASA said in its announcement it is changing the plan for the spacecraft that will land on Mars to retrieve the samples and exploring two new, different options. One of the option

The Mars Sample Return effort was billions of dollars over budget and not expected to return to Earth with its samples until 2040.

NASA and the European Space Agency are planning to return some of these precious rock samples to Earth, the culmination of a decades-long dream to retrieve pristine rocks from Mars. The ambitious, multi-billion-dollar effort,