Lockheed Martin Wins NASA Contract to Bring Mars Samples Back to Earth

NASA's Perseverance Rover captured an image on March 17, 2021, of Jezero Crater's 'Delta Scarp' on Mars Handout NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL/CNES/CNRS/ASU/MSSS/AFP/File

Lockheed Martin's space division has won a NASA contract to build the rocket that will return the first Mars rock samples to Earth in the 2030s, the US space agency said Monday.

The "small, lightweight rocket" will be the first to take off from another planet, bringing back "rock, sediment and atmospheric samples from the surface of the Red Planet," NASA said in a statement.