Rocket Lab wants to bring NASA's Perseverance rover samples back from Mars.

As interest in Mars Sample Return (MSR) resurfaces, Rocket Lab founder and CEO Peter Beck says his company already has experience with the spacecraft and hardware needed to get the interplanetary job done.

The MSR mission has taken on new urgency since a Sept. 10 NASA announcement that a Martian surface sample collected by its Perseverance rover contains mineral textures indicative of a possible biosignature — potential evidence of ancient life on the Red Planet. Scientists say determining if those features were actually created by extraterrestrials will require studying them with terrestrial equipment, and Beck believes Rocket Lab can make that happen.

"As a planetary science geek … on my own personal quest to

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