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Mars Sample Return | What Replaces the $11B Plan
$110M redirectMSR cancelled
Congress eliminated the $11B Mars Sample Return campaign and ESA cancelled the Earth Return Orbiter. $110M survives in a Mars Future Missions line. What architecture rises from the rubble, and which contractors it carries.
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SR-1 Freedom | America's First Nuclear Spacecraft
~$1B+Mars launch 2028
NASA's first nuclear-powered interplanetary spacecraft targets a December 2028 Mars launch on a bus built from Gateway's Power and Propulsion Element. The reactor is not yet built, which leaves the reactor and integration work as the open seats in space nuclear.
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Tianwen-3 | China's the Only One Still Going for Mars Rocks
Only funded MSRLaunch ~2028
With the Western sample-return architecture collapsed, China's Tianwen-3 is now the only funded mission to bring Mars rocks home. The geopolitics of who holds the first samples just shifted east.
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ESCAPADE | New Glenn's First Mars Science Delivery
$80M twin probesMars arrival 2027
Two small spacecraft launched on New Glenn's second flight on November 13, 2025, headed for Mars orbit in 2027 to study how the solar wind strips the atmosphere. The model for cheap, fast planetary science under a tight cap.
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Rosalind Franklin | NASA Launches ESA's Rover
~$1.8BLaunch late 2028
Europe's Mars rover, rebuilt after the Russia partnership collapsed, now flies on a NASA-procured vehicle in 2028 with a two-meter drill. A growing model where NASA brokers launches for allied science.
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DRACO Cancelled | Nuclear Thermal Loses Its Flight Demo
Programmed outDemo cancelled
The DRACO nuclear thermal propulsion flight demo was cancelled, sending General Atomics and Standard Nuclear teams toward SR-1 support or DoD work. The first US nuclear propulsion test since NERVA slips again.
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MMX | JAXA's Race to Phobos and Back
~$450MLaunched Oct 19, 2026
JAXA's Martian Moons eXploration launched October 19 on an H3 from Tanegashima for a Phobos sample return, with Mars arrival planned for August 2027 and Earth return for 2031. NASA supplied the MEGANE instrument and the P-Sampler and receives at least 15% of the returned samples.
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Mars Future Missions | Where the $110M Redirect Goes
$110M lineRolling
The technology-continuity account that absorbed the MSR redirect. Where the money actually flows, from ISRU precursors to sample-return alternatives, and the BAA or SBIR tranche it implies.
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MOXIE's Orphan | Oxygen on Mars With No Follow-On
Proven, unfundedNo successor
MOXIE made oxygen from Mars air at twice its design rate, then ended with no funded successor. Five orders of magnitude separate the demo from what a crew needs. The scale-up nobody has bought yet.