Andrew D. Czaja Tanja Bosak Audrey Bouvier Brandi L. Carrier Katherine L. French Daniel P. Glavin Andrea D. Harrington Elisabeth M. Hausrath Christopher D.K. Herd Keyron Hickman-Lewis Lisa E. Mayhew Francis M. McCubbin Susanne P. Schwenzer Elliot Sefton-Nash Sandra M. Siljeström Justin L. Simon Bronwyn L. Teece Fiona Thiessen Ben P. Weiss the MSR Campaign Science Group Gerhard Kminek Lindsay E. Hays Nicolas Dauphas Lydia Hallis Rachel Harris Ernst Hauber Laura Rodriguez Andrew Steele Kimberly Tait Michael T. Thorpe Tomo Usui Michael Velbel Jessica Vanhomwegen Maria-Paz Zorzano 2025 <p><span id="_mce_caret" data-mce-bogus="1" data-mce-type="format-caret"><span>The Mars Sample Return (MSR) Campaign aims to retrieve a set of carefully selected and documented samples collected by NASA’s&nbsp;</span><i>Perseverance</i><span>&nbsp;rover in and around Jezero Crater on Mars and deliver this set to Earth for comprehensive laboratory analyses. To emphasize the immense scientific return of this unique collection, this work presents a Sample Science Traceability Matrix (SSTM), a systematic framework that aligns each sample with the MSR campaign’s defined science objectives, subobjectives, and critical research questions. The SSTM explicitly connects prioritized goals—including geologic history, astrobiology, planetary evolution, and human exploration science—to each of the individual samples gathered in and around Jezero Crater on Mars. This matrix offers a structured, quantitative method to assess each sample’s capacity to address key scientific questions, while highlighting synergies across the sample suite and showcasing the overall value of the collection. The SSTM provides a valuable tool for guiding future sample analyses and identifying the most impactful samples that could be collected in the future to complete the set collected by the Mars 2020 mission. It also supports the next phase of Mars sample science and informs strategies for future Mars exploration missions.</span></span></p> application/pdf 10.1177/15311074251382585 en SAGE Publications Sample Science Traceability Matrix (SSTM) for Perseverance’s Mars sample return collection article