ORLANDO, Fla. — Rocket Lab is asking the incoming administration to reconsider NASA’s plans for Mars Sample Return (MSR), arguing it can offer an approach that is faster and less expensive than the agency’s alternatives.
NASA announced Jan. 7 it would spend the next year and a half studying two new architectures for MSR. One would deliver a sample retrieval lander using a version of the “sky crane” landing system developed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for the Curiosity and Perseverance rovers. The other would use a commercially developed “heavy lander” to deliver the same lander.
NASA reached that conclusion after reviewing a dozen studies it commissioned in mid-2024 from industry and NASA centers. Among the studies was one by Rocket Lab, which won a study contract several months after the others were awarded.
The company proposed a completely new end-to-end system that would largely use its technologies in launch vehicles, spacecraft and other systems. That approach, which the company outlined on its website after the NASA announcement, is similar to NASA’s earlier architecture, including the use of a sample retrieval lander, Mars ascent vehicle rocket to launch the samples into orbit, and an Earth return orbiter that would bring the samples back to Earth.
The difference, the company argues, is that it can do it faster and cheaper than NASA’s plans. The agency said the two MSR architectures it is considering will cost between $5.8 billion and $7.7 billion and would return samples between 2035 and 2039. That is an improvement over earlier assessments of up to $11 billion and a sample return in 2040.
“We think we’re the organization that can bring these Mars samples home faster and cheaper,” said Richard French, vice president of business development and strategy for space systems at Rocket Lab, in an interview after the NASA announcement. “Our architecture, as proposed to NASA, was to bring samples back for less than $4 billion and as early as 2031.”
He did not go into details on how Rocket Lab made those cost and schedule assessments, but emphasized the company was leveraging its capabilities across the company, from its Neutron launch vehicle to its work with Varda Space Industries on its reentry vehicle and on the Victus Haze mission for the U.S. Space Force that will feature rendezvous and proximity operations. “A number of these programs are pushing forward the capabilities that we would ultimately need for MSR,” he said.
The company got little response from NASA on its MSR study. “It was pretty frustrating,” French said. “We received very little to no feedback on our inputs.”
He said Rocket Lab wants NASA, rather than to continue studies of MSR, instead open the program to a commercial competition. “If NASA wants to show leadership, it’s to lean into commercial capability and be bold and compete,” he argued. “We’re pretty hopeful with what the new administration is going to bring and how they respond to this set of recommendations.”
Under that approach, NASA might first select several proposals for initial studies before choosing one to carry out the revised MSR program. French noted that NASA is asking for at least $300 million in the final fiscal year 2025 appropriations bill to study the two alternatives the agency is currently considering. “Initial studies with multiple commercial providers would be far more affordable, and it would, in our view, do much more to bring the schedule in and emphasize commercial innovation than the current plan.”
Rocket Lab is not the only organization disappointed with NASA’s decision to continue MSR studies for another year and a half. “We remain concerned that NASA is again delaying a decision on the program, committing only to additional concept studies,” The Planetary Society said in a Jan. 8 statement. “It has been more than two years since NASA paused work on MSR. It is time to commit to a path forward to ensure the return of the samples already being collected by the Perseverance rover.”
That organization called on the incoming Trump administration “to expedite a decision on a path forward for this ambitious project” and for Congress to allocate sufficient funding for it.
“It’s kind of interesting to note that that NASA spent a whole year assessing outcomes, and the plan forward is simply to study it for another year and defer the decision for another year,” French said. “This is not a this is not a problem that needs a lot more study by the agency. We want to proceed right now into early design phases.”