NASA has obligated $1,604,628,076 to date under a cost-plus-fixed-fee delivery order awarded to the California Institute of Technology for "Mars Sample Return (MSR) Program - Phase A" work performed at the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, according to federal contracting records. The task order, numbered 80NM0021F0008, was signed Dec. 17, 2020, and falls under JPL's indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity FFRDC contract vehicle, parent award 80NM0018D0004.

The obligation reflects years of NASA's since-restructured effort to retrieve rock and soil samples cached by the Perseverance rover. After an independent review board found the program's original roughly $11 billion cost estimate and 2040 return timeline unsustainable, NASA spent 2024 and 2025 studying two alternative landing architectures — one built on JPL's proven sky-crane system, the other relying on a commercial heavy lander — with a design decision expected by mid-2026. That decision was preempted when Congress's fiscal year 2026 appropriations package, passed in January 2026, declined to fund the existing MSR program, instead directing $110 million to a new "Mars Future Missions" line intended to preserve related technology development.

The $1.6 billion figure is the cumulative amount obligated to date on this single task order, not the order's full potential value or the value of the broader IDIQ vehicle; USAspending.gov lists the order's base-and-all-options value at $2,411,175,864. The award's period of performance runs from Dec. 17, 2020 through Sept. 24, 2028. Contracting records show the delivery order was awarded without competition, citing FAR 6.302-3 (mobilization, essential research and development), with NASA's JPL management office listed as both the awarding and funding agency office.

Source: USAspending.gov