Illustration of a Mars sample returner lander just before touchdown on the surface of Mars. NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) plan to return rock and soil samples from Mars to Earth. The samples will be collected by the Mars 2020 rover and stored in sealed tubes on the planet's surface for a future return to Earth. The lander will carry a rocket (the Mars Ascent Vehicle) along with ESA's sample fetch rover. The fetch rover will gather the cached samples and carry them back to the lander for transfer to the ascent vehicle. The ascent vehicle will then launch a special container holding the samples into Mars orbit to rendezvous with a spacecraft that will return the samples to Earth.