An exploding budget and an unraveling schedule spell disappointment for NASA's mission to learn more about Mars's history.

NASA announced Tuesday that it is exploring two options to move forward with its mission to return samples from Mars at a lower cost.

The company has outlined its proposed architecture to return martian rock and dust samples to Earth for research.

NASA hopes a revised plan will get Mars samples back to Earth faster and cost less than the agency's original plan.

NASA announced Tuesday it had narrowed down to two options the reworked Mars Sample Return mission aiming for a cheaper and quicker completion than the version that was killed last year. One would be to use a version of the sky crane system that was used to land both the Mars rovers Perseverance and Curiosity safely on the Martian surface.

Previously, the Mars Sample Return mission had been estimated to cost around 11 billion dollars and would not return a sample until the 2040's, noted Nelson, who said a re-evaluation of the mission had to be done because "this thing had gotten out of control."

NASA has announced potential plans to recover rock samples from Mars. Scientists aim to investigate whether there is extraterrestrial life on the Red Planet. Bringing back the Perseverance rover, which has been collecting materials from the bottom of a Martian lake since 2021,