The state of Mars exploration in 2026 looks very different from what most people expected a year ago. NASA’s flagship Mars Sample Return program was effectively cancelled in January. SpaceX announced in February that it was delaying its Mars ambitions by several years to focus on lunar missions. China is moving forward with its own sample return mission. And new commercial players are quietly developing the technologies that will eventually make Mars settlement possible.
This post walks through where Mars exploration actually stands right now, who the major players are, and what the realistic roadmap looks like for the rest of the decade.
NASA’s Mars Program in 2026: A Major Reset
For more than a decade, NASA’s Mars strategy centered on the Perseverance rover and the Mars Sample Return (MSR) program, a joint effort with the European Space Agency to bring carefully collected Martian rock samples back to Earth. Perseverance landed in Jezero Crater in 2021 and has since collected dozens of sample tubes, many from environments that may have once been habitable.
The plan to retrieve those samples ran into trouble. By 2024, an independent review board projected the full cost at around $11 billion, with a return date potentially slipping into the 2040s. NASA spent 2024 and 2025 evaluating alternative architectures, including concepts that would use commercial landers or simpler mission profiles.
In January 2026, a Congressional spending bill effectively ended the program. The bill followed the White House’s recommendation to cancel MSR in favor of prioritizing human Mars exploration. Congress shifted $110 million to a new “Mars Future Missions” program meant to preserve the technology development work from MSR, including entry, descent, and landing systems for the thin Martian atmosphere.
The practical consequence is that Perseverance’s carefully collected samples now sit on Mars with no confirmed plan to retrieve them. The rover itself continues its science mission and is in good condition, but the sample return architecture that was supposed to follow it no longer exists in its original form.
SpaceX Shifts Focus to the Moon
SpaceX’s Mars ambitions have been central to public conversation about commercial space for years. Elon Musk has repeatedly described Mars colonization as the company’s ultimate goal, with Starship as the vehicle that would make it possible.
In 2025, Musk stated that SpaceX would target the 2026/2027 Mars launch window for the first uncrewed Starship mission, with a rough estimate of 50% confidence in meeting that window. The plan called for five uncrewed Starships to attempt Mars landings during the window, followed by crewed missions in later opportunities if the initial flights succeeded.
Then on February 9, 2026, SpaceX announced it was delaying Mars missions by roughly five to seven years to focus on lunar missions. The shift reflects both the technical challenges Starship continues to face, particularly around in-orbit refueling, and the strategic importance of the NASA Artemis program, which selected Starship as a lunar lander.
What this means practically: the first Starship Mars flight is likely now in the early to mid 2030s rather than 2026 or 2027. The technology work continues, but Mars is no longer on the immediate horizon for commercial crewed flight.
China’s Tianwen-3: A Different Approach to Sample Return
While NASA’s MSR program struggled and SpaceX pushed its timeline back, China has quietly moved forward with its own Mars sample return mission. Tianwen-3 is scheduled to launch in 2028 and aims to return samples to Earth by 2031.
The Chinese mission takes a simpler approach than the original NASA plan. Rather than collecting samples from a range of geologically diverse sites across a long traverse, Tianwen-3 would land at a single location and use a “grab and go” architecture to collect material from that one area. The scientific return would be narrower than what MSR was designed for, but the mission is more likely to actually deliver samples on a realistic timeline.
If Tianwen-3 succeeds, China will be the first country to return samples from Mars, a significant milestone in planetary exploration and a substantial shift in the balance of international space leadership.
ESCAPADE, MMX, and Other Mars Missions Launching Soon
Even without MSR, several robotic missions are advancing Mars science and exploration in the near term.
NASA’s twin ESCAPADE spacecraft are expected to perform an Earth gravity assist in November 2026, sending them toward Mars. ESCAPADE will study how solar wind interacts with the Martian atmosphere, helping to refine models of how Mars lost most of its original atmosphere over billions of years.
Japan’s Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) mission is planned for launch in late 2026. MMX will study Phobos and Deimos, the two small moons of Mars, and is designed to return samples from Phobos to Earth. If successful, MMX would be the first mission to return samples from the Martian system.
The European Space Agency continues to operate the Mars Express orbiter and the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, both of which provide ongoing atmospheric and surface data.
Commercial Mars Innovation: Habitats, Life Support, and ISRU
While much of the public conversation about commercial Mars exploration focuses on SpaceX and Starship, a broader ecosystem of companies is working on the technologies that Mars settlement will eventually require.
In-situ resource utilization (ISRU) is one of the most active areas. Companies and research groups are developing ways to extract water from Martian regolith, produce oxygen from the carbon dioxide atmosphere, and eventually manufacture rocket propellant on Mars itself. NASA’s MOXIE experiment on Perseverance already demonstrated small-scale oxygen production from the Martian atmosphere.
Habitat design is another active area. Several companies are working on inflatable habitats, 3D-printed structures using Martian regolith, and radiation shielding systems that could protect settlers from the harsh Martian environment. Melodie Yashar, a featured speaker at ISDC 2026, led NASA’s CHAPEA habitat design work and continues to develop habitat concepts through her firm AENARA. These topics are covered in depth in ISDC’s Space Settlement track.
Life support, food production, and closed-loop ecological systems are also seeing sustained investment. Research groups are studying how to grow crops in Martian conditions, recycle water and air over long periods, and maintain biological stability in sealed environments.
The Realistic Mars Roadmap for the Rest of the Decade
Given the current state of the field, here is what the realistic Mars exploration roadmap looks like for the remainder of the 2020s:
- 2026: The Perseverance and Curiosity rovers continue science operations; ESCAPADE performs Earth gravity assist on its way to Mars; Japan’s MMX mission launches. NASA’s Mars Odyssey and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiters continue sending back data, along with probes from China, Europe, and the UAE.
- 2027: Ongoing orbital and surface science from existing assets; continued technology development for future missions
- 2028: China’s Tianwen-3 sample return mission launches
- 2031: China’s Tianwen-3 targeted sample return to Earth
- Early to mid 2030s: Possible first SpaceX Starship uncrewed Mars test flights, depending on technical progress; NASA’s path forward for human Mars exploration becomes clearer with technologies piloted on the Moon and deep space
Human Mars missions remain on the horizon but are not imminent. The combination of MSR’s cancellation, SpaceX’s delay and turn toward the Moon, and the broader reality of the technical challenges means that humans on Mars is a 2030s or 2040s story, not a 2020s one.
Where This Gets Discussed: Mars at ISDC 2026
The people actually working on these missions and technologies gather each year at the International Space Development Conference. ISDC 2026 includes a dedicated Mars track covering current mission status, settlement planning, transportation architecture, life support systems, and the commercial innovation happening across the sector.
Featured speakers at ISDC 2026 include Dr. Pascal Lee, a planetary scientist with the SETI Institute, the Mars Institute, and NASA Ames Research Center, who has been a central figure in Mars exploration planning for decades. The Mars track at ISDC brings together NASA researchers, commercial space engineers, habitat designers, and policy experts to discuss where the field is and where it is going. Dr. Jim Green, former NASA Chief Scientist, will also discuss the future of Mars exploration.
For anyone interested in the future of Mars exploration, the Mars sessions at ISDC 2026 are one of the best places to hear directly from the people shaping it.
👉 Explore the ISDC 2026 schedule and Mars sessions 👉 Register for ISDC 2026 in McLean, Virginia
Frequently Asked Questions
What was the Mars Sample Return program?
Mars Sample Return (MSR) was a joint NASA and European Space Agency mission designed to collect rock and soil samples from Mars and return them to Earth. The plan involved multiple spacecraft, including NASA’s Perseverance rover (which has been gathering samples since 2021), a retrieval lander, a Mars Ascent Vehicle, and an Earth Return Orbiter. The program was effectively ended by Congress in January 2026 after costs ballooned and schedules slipped repeatedly.
What is NASA’s Perseverance rover doing now?
Perseverance continues its science mission in Jezero Crater. The rover is in good operational condition and has collected dozens of sample tubes from geologically diverse locations. Those samples now sit on Mars without a confirmed plan for retrieval, though NASA’s new “Mars Future Missions” program may eventually develop a way to bring them back.
What about NASA’s Curiosity rover?
The Curiosity rover, which landed in Gale Crater in 2012, continues exploring the area, and has recently moved to some of the most promising targets on the mountain at the center of the crater, called Mount Sharp. Both Curiosity and Perseverance have nuclear power supplies and should return many more years of science from Mars.
What is SpaceX’s Starship and how does it connect to Mars?
Starship is SpaceX’s fully reusable super heavy lift launch vehicle, designed from the beginning as the transportation system Elon Musk envisions for eventual Mars colonization. The vehicle is still in development and has been selected by NASA as a lunar lander for the Artemis program. SpaceX continues to work on Starship but shifted near-term focus to lunar missions in early 2026.
What is in-situ resource utilization on Mars?
In-situ resource utilization, or ISRU, is the practice of using materials found on another planet rather than bringing everything from Earth. On Mars, ISRU research focuses on extracting water from subsurface ice and regolith, producing oxygen from the carbon dioxide atmosphere, and potentially manufacturing rocket propellant on the surface. NASA’s MOXIE experiment on the Perseverance rover successfully demonstrated small-scale oxygen production from Martian air.