NASA is staying focused on the Artemis lunar program, its Moon to Mars objectives, and maintaining a presence in low Earth orbit as part of the agency’s proposed budget for 2024.
NASA’s Perseverance rover landed on Mars on February 18, 2020, and has since been spending every Martian sol exploring the western end of Jezero Crater, imaging the Martian surface, and—vitally—collecting rock samples that will be shipped to Earth in the early 2030s.
The Mars Sample Return Program is a bold plan to deliver precious samples of Martian soil back to Earth without human intervention.