Mars sample-return mission
A Mars sample-return (MSR) mission is a proposed mission to collect rock and dust samples on Mars and return them to Earth. Such a mission would allow more extensive analysis than that allowed by onboard sensors.
Mars sample return – artist's concept
Mars meteorites in the Natural History Museum in Vienna
Artist concept of a Mars sample-return mission, 1993
Mars Sample Return Program (artwork; 27 July 2022)
A sample-return mission is a spacecraft mission to collect and return samples from an extraterrestrial location to Earth for analysis. Sample-return missions may bring back merely atoms and molecules or a deposit of complex compounds such as loose material and rocks. These samples may be obtained in a number of ways, such as soil and rock excavation or a collector array used for capturing particles of solar wind or cometary debris. Nonetheless, concerns have been raised that the return of such samples to planet Earth may endanger Earth itself.
The Genesis Rock, returned by the Apollo 15 lunar mission in 1971.
The sample return capsule from NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission shortly after touching down in the desert in Utah
A meteorite thought to be from Mars
Apollo 11 was the first mission to return extraterrestrial samples.