Mission: Impossible | Mission | sample | mission | United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo | Mission: Impossible II | The Return of the King | Joe Sample | Mission: Impossible III | Return of the Jedi | Mission (Christian) | Return to Mayberry | Mission: Impossible (film) | The Mission (band) | The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King | Return to Peyton Place | Return to Oz | Ramakrishna Mission | Mission of Burma | Christopher C. Kraft Jr. Mission Control Center | United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara | Return from Witch Mountain | Mission Street | Hiberno-Scottish mission | Divine Light Mission | Church Mission Society | The Mission Inn Hotel & Spa | Swift Gamma-Ray Burst Mission | Mission to Moscow | Mission (LDS Church) |
A Mars sample return mission (MSR) would be a spaceflight mission to collect rock and dust samples from Mars and to return them to Earth.
The mission is planned for a 2016 launch and will study and return a sample of asteroid 101955 Bennu (formerly designated 1999 RQ36), a carbonaceous asteroid, to Earth for detailed analyses in 2023.
In 1999, he became a project scientist on the feasibility of the Fobos-Grunt sample return mission.
However with an agreement for cooperation with the European Space Agency on ExoMars had been reached, the space agency chose to focus on that program instead, but not ruled out any possible future Phobos sample return mission.
Samples necessary to achieve the scientific objectives of the proposed future sample return mission would be collected, documented, and packaged in a manner suitable for potential return to Earth.
According to Louis Friedman, Executive Director of The Planetary Society, a Mars sample return mission is often described by the planetary science community as the "holy grail" of robotic space missions, due to its high expected scientific return-on-investment.
It proposes some new missions, such as a cometary mission, an extended Cassini mission (including three probes; one for the study of the atmosphere of Saturn, one atmospheric Titan probe and one to land on Titan) and a Mars sample return mission.