Awesome! NASA to do a first on this Mars to Earth mission

tech.hindustantimes.com:

NASA has been maneuvering its Perseverance rover on Mars for more than a year now! The rover is working to explore Mars and collecting pieces from its surface that will help scientists look for the presence of life on the Red Planet. If all goes according to the plan, then the collected pieces of Mars by Perseverance will be the first samples of another planet to be brought back to Earth. However, it will not be possible to do this before 2033. Reason being that, launching and landing a rover on Mars is one thing, but getting the samples back to Earth safely, is quite another. The risks and challenges are daunting, says NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration).

To accomplish this challenging task, NASA has awarded a contract to the iconic company Lockheed Martin Space of Littleton, Colorado. It will build the Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV), a small, lightweight dedicated rocket to bring rock, sediment, and atmospheric samples from the surface of the Red Planet back to Earth. This will be a kind of return journey for the miniature rocket from Mars to Earth while carrying the samples from another planet.

Of course, the rocket will be launched from the Earth to Mars before it can take off from there! NASA explained that it will launch the MAV inside a larger spacecraft, which will probably take off around 2028. The miniature rocket will have a section in the top for carrying collected samples in addition to the two engines that will power it up into orbit. As it will be carried to Mars inside a larger spacecraft, NASA’s main focus is to keep the rocket small and light, basically keeping its mass light as much as possible. In length, it will measure around 10 feet tall while weight will be even under half a ton.