Chris Young’s Beyond Earth column explores the intersection of space technology and policy, providing thought-provoking commentary on the latest advancements and regulatory developments in the sector.
NASA’s flagship Mars Sample Return mission, the culmination of decades of planetary engineering, is on the chopping block. The Trump administration’s FY26 budget proposes canceling the multi-billion-dollar effort, even as Lockheed Martin enters the ring with a $3 billion fixed-price alternative.
What’s at stake? The legacy of Perseverance, US leadership in planetary exploration, and a decade of engineering labor spanning JPL, ESA, and dozens of contractors.
Back in February 2021, NASA’s Perseverance spacecraft entered Mars’ atmosphere after a seven-month, 470 million-kilometer journey from Earth. The $2.4 billion mission pulled off one of the most complex landings ever attempted – a process NASA engineers call the “seven minutes of terror.”
Since then, Perseverance has traversed ancient lakebeds in the Jezero Crater, drilling into Martian rock and caching a trail of sealed soil samples.
Fast forward to 2025, and a lot of the work carried out by the Perseverance rover could end up being for nothing. President Trump’s NASA budget proposal could cancel the proposed Mars Sample Return mission. The mission was planned to retrieve Perseverance’s soil samples and return them to Earth.
This week, Lockheed Martin proposed an alternative plan for the mission that would retrieve the samples on a slashed budget. Some believe this ties into the Trump administration’s claim that the private sector will shoulder the burden of scientific discovery. In reality, it highlights that the private sector requires big-budget NASA contracts to function.
Trump’s NASA budget cuts are heavily focused on scientific missions. The president’s administration has marked high-cost scientific missions for the chopping block. Mars Sample Return is a prime candidate, as its budget has snowballed.
Mars Sample Return is one of the most technically ambitious missions NASA has ever attempted. It requires a spacecraft to land near Perseverance’s sample depots, deploy a robotic fetch rover, seal the samples into a container, and launch them into Martian orbit aboard the first rocket ever fired from another planet. There, they’d rendezvous with another spacecraft, transfer the container, and begin the journey back to Earth.
All of this could cost more than $7 billion. In an audit published in February 2024, NASA’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) criticized Mars Sample Return for its lack of financial planning, delayed design, and “initial over-optimism.” The audit raised concerns that added delays and budget overruns could lead to a cost of roughly $11 billion.
That’s where Lockheed Martin aims to step in. The defense and aerospace giant claims it can leverage its space technology legacy to complete the mission for less than $3 billion on a fixed-price contract. Any cost overruns? The company would foot the bill.
Ultimately, Lockheed Martin would replace the existing spacecraft concepts with lighter versions. These would be based on designs it has used for other planetary space missions. Weight is arguably the most important factor in any space mission. It determines the amount of fuel a spacecraft can carry, which greatly impacts the overall cost.
Here’s a rough breakdown of Lockheed Martin’s weight and size parameters.
The original lander would be replaced with a smaller one based on Lockheed Martin’s Insight lander. For reference, Insight weighs 794 lbs (360 kg). The private company will also design a smaller Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV) weighing 500-660 lb (250-300 kg), with an 11-lb (5-kg) sample payload. Finally, based on NASA’s Genesis spacecraft, Lockheed Martin would build a lighter Earth Entry System (EES). That spacecraft’s dry mass was 1,089 lb (494 kg).
Lockheed Martin presents a rousing vision of private sector efficiency, saving NASA from its bloated design. It plays into the Trump administration’s idea that the private sector will shoulder the burden for space operations if its cuts go into effect.
However, this is a poor attempt at justifying the damage that will be dealt by Trump’s “skinny budget”, if it does go into effect. Simply put, the private space industry will never be able to reach the same scientific heights as NASA.
The Planetary Society’s Chief of Space Policy, Casey Dreier, pointed out in a recent blog post that science is “a process rather than a product”. Consistently turning scientific inquiry into near-term profit is a practically impossible task.
Historically, many life-changing technologies were originally criticized as wasteful or unnecessary, and would never have been developed by private enterprise. Today’s ubiquitous examples include the microscope, the internet, and GPS.
A former NASA associate director, Dr. Ernst Stuhlinger, famously cited the microscope when asked how we can spend so much on space with all the poverty on Earth.
In a letter to a Zambia-based nun who had posed the question, Stuhlinger replied with a story: 400 years ago, Germany’s population was struggling with the plague. The country’s government was criticized for investing in developing glass lenses deemed unnecessary and wasteful. However, this eventually led to the creation of the microscope, a giant leap for medicine.
Private space companies have made massive leaps in recent years, but they are standing on the shoulders of giants. Rocket Lab, for example, would not be developing a private spacecraft for Venus if NASA’s scientific groundwork didn’t make it worthwhile. Lockheed Martin’s new proposal takes heavy cues from previous NASA missions.
There is clearly a problem when Mars Sample Return’s final cost could fluctuate by several billion dollars. One could argue that the Trump administration should put it on the chopping block. However, Trump’s space science cancelations pay little attention to the taxpayer money invested in several critical missions.
The Perseverance mission has already cost more than 2 billion dollars to send to Mars. Its legacy hinges on Mars Sample Return. The state-of-the-art Nancy Grace Roman Telescope, meanwhile, cost $3.5 billion to build. If Trump’s new budget makes it through Congress, the observatory won’t make it to space, as it would not receive the required funding for launch.
In a recent interview with Interesting Engineering, The Planetary Society’s Casey Dreier said the “proposed budget, if enacted, would plunge NASA science into a dark age: needlessly terminating productive missions, halting many future projects currently in development, and functionally surrendering US leadership in space exploration.”
In an interview with Space.com, former NASA astronaut Terry Virts said Trump’s budget proposal was “ridiculous” and everyone should “expect something better out of America”.
Trump’s budget would also cut NASA’s nuclear rocket demonstrator, DRACO. Many see nuclear propulsion as the next evolution of space travel. In a 2023 interview with IE, Ad Astra Rocket Company founder Franklin Chang-Díaz said “for me, [nuclear propulsion] is the one thing that needs to be done for humans to go to Mars. That is the homework that has not been done, that should have been done half a century ago.”
For engineers, vendors, and contractors, the risk is tangible. An underfunded, gutted NASA doesn’t just stall science, it disrupts a complex supply chain, curtails high-skilled jobs, and weakens the innovation ecosystem that underpins American space leadership.