| Once it has collected them in what can be likened to an interplanetary treasure hunt, it will return to the lander platform and load them into a single large canister on the Mars Ascent Vehicle MAV | In addition, as our equipment improves and new advances are made, samples can be reanalysed and new information extracted — as continues to happen on lunar samples brought to Earth in the 1960s and 1970s |
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| ESA and NASA are exploring the concepts for these missions, with ESA assessing the Sample Fetch Rover and Earth Return Orbiter | Studying Mars samples on Earth will allow scientists to share resources and send samples to the best laboratories around the world for analysis — laboratories so complicated and heavy they would be impossible to take to Mars |
ESA is working with NASA to explore mission concepts for an international Mars Sample Return campaign between 2020 and 2030.
27| A NASA launch will send the Sample Return Lander mission to land a platform near the Mars 2020 site | From here, a small ESA rover — the Sample Fetch Rover — will head out to retrieve the cached samples |
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| The samples will be sealed in a biocontainment system to prevent contaminating Earth with unsterilised material before being moved into an Earth entry capsule | Orbiters, landers and rovers sent to Mars carry compact equipment and instruments that limit the science that can be achieved on any given mission |
Accomplishments in robotic exploration in recent years have increased confidence in success — multiple launches will be necessary to deliver samples from Mars.
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