NASA MEDIA TELECON ON AGENCY’S RESPONSE TO MARS SAMPLE RETURN INDEPENDENT REVIEW, Apr 15, 2024, virtual, 1:00 pm ET

NASA will hold a media telecon on April 15, 2024 at 1:00 pm ET to discuss the agency’s response to the second Independent Review Board (IRB-2) for the Mars Sample Return mission.

The IRB-2 issued its report in September 2023 recommending that the entire approach (“architecture”) for returning samples of Mars to Earth be reconsdiered and estimated the cost at $8-11 billion. The mission is scientifically compelling, but extremely expensive especially at a time when NASA’s budget is under great stress due to the budget caps imposed last year by the Fiscal Responsibility Act.

NASA established a Mars Sample Return Independent Review Board Response Team (MIRT) led by Sandra Connelly, Deputy Associate Administrator for the Science Mission Directorate, to develop the agency’s response to the report. That is the topic of this telecon.

Participants are:

• Bill Nelson, NASA Administrator
• Nicky Fox, NASA Associate Administrator for the Science Mission Directorate

The telecon will be livestreamed on NASA TV.