Dr. Nick Fox, the director of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, told reporters, “We explore Mars as part of our ongoing efforts to safely send humans to explore farther and farther into the solar system while also kind of getting to the bottom of whether Mars once supported ancient life and shed life on the early solar system.”

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

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,

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

NASA will investigate two new approaches to bring its Mars samples to Earth through a mission proposal that is less expensive and technically complicated. The space agency will flesh out options that could either involve using a commercial lander,

NASA has unveiled two revamped plans to bring Mars samples to Earth in the 2030s, reducing costs by nearly half from its initial $11 billion proposal while expediting the timeline.