"House bill aims to fund Mars Sample Return while limiting cooperation on ExoMars due to potential risks to Earth"

House appropriators have released a report accompanying the commerce, justice, and science spending bill for fiscal year 2024, fully funding NASA's Mars Sample Return program at $949.3 million and instructing NASA to request the necessary funding in 2025 to ensure the sample retrieval lander and Earth return orbiter missions launch by 2030. However, the report also blocks funding for NASA's support of the European Space Agency's Rosalind Franklin ExoMars rover. The House bill reduces funding for Earth science, astrophysics, heliophysics, and biological and physical sciences compared to the Senate bill, and provides specific language directing NASA to prioritize proximity to the current curator for the receiving facility of extraterrestrial samples.