China marches ahead of US in critical race for Mars rocks

UPDATED: Jan 11, 2025 01:09 IST

China’s space ambitions have surged ahead of NASA’s, with the US space agency now facing a significant delay in its Mars sample return mission, the South China Morning Post has reported.

NASA’s updated timeline for collecting and returning Martian soil, gathered by its Perseverance rover, now places the earliest possible arrival at 2035—at least four years behind China’s expected timeline. In contrast, Chinese officials confirmed that their Tianwen-3 mission, slated to return around 600 grams (21 ounces) of Martian soil, remains on track to deliver the samples by 2031.

NASA’s outgoing administrator Bill Nelson gave the updated timeline at a media briefing and said the agency is grappling with ballooning costs that led to the abandonment of an earlier, more expensive plan.

NASA had initially projected a Mars sample return mission to cost $3 billion, but by 2023, this had ballooned to $11 billion. The expected return date under the original plan had been 2040, but now, with a new strategy and the involvement of private companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin, NASA aims to bring the samples to Earth by 2035—potentially as late as 2039.

Conversely, China’s approach has moved at a brisk pace, with their Tianwen-3 mission expected to reach Mars ahead of NASA’s, the report said.

Astrophysicist Quentin Parker from the University of Hong Kong called China’s lead a “Sputnik moment,” likening it to the Soviet Union’s 1957 launch of the first artificial satellite, which caught the US off guard.

The Tianwen-3 mission will use a "grab-and-go" strategy for sample collection, a simpler approach than NASA’s more methodical method. NASA’s Perseverance rover has been selecting rocks from multiple locations in Mars’ Jezero crater, which scientists believe could reveal the planet’s history from millions of years ago.

NASA and China are pursuing different approaches to their missions. Yang Wei, a planetary geologist at the Institute of Geology and Geophysics in Beijing, said China’s research community will prioritize diversity in its sampling, using a combination of drilling, scooping, and rover-based collection. This approach is seen as more feasible and efficient, despite NASA’s more comprehensive method being praised for its potential scientific returns.

Despite NASA’s challenges, Nelson expressed confidence that the next administration would fund the Mars sample return mission, emphasizing the importance of not letting China be the sole player in bringing Martian soil back to Earth.