Read more: See hereNASA's Perseverance rover has been hard at work on Mars, collecting pieces of rock and stowing them away on the Red Planet. But back on Earth, the space agency has been struggling to carry out its plan of retrieving the Martian samples. Following months of deliberation, NASA has decided to pursue two alternative routes for its Mars Sample Return program, one of which elicits the help of the private industry.
During a media briefing on Tuesday, NASA announced an unusual approach to its ambitious Martian sample mission. The space agency will simultaneously pursue two different ways of brining samples from the other world to Earth. ⁘Pursuing two potential paths forward will ensure that NASA is able bring these samples back from Mars with significant cost and schedule saving compared to the previous plan,⁘ NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a statement .
At this point, NASA will proceed with ⁘two distinct means of landing the payload platform on Mars,⁘ the space agency wrote. The first option will involve tried and tested means of landing on Mars using a sky crane similar to ones used by NASA's rovers, while the other option will opt for a new method developed by a commercial partner.
Scientists have stumbled upon an entirely new way for icy worlds to collide and form binary pairs in space.
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