Nasa and Esa have signed a letter of intent that could lead to the first "round trip" to another planet.
The move was announced as a meeting in Berlin, Germany, discussed the science goals and feasibility of a Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission.
The venture would allow scientists to answer key questions about Martian history.
Those questions include whether the Red Planet once hosted life.
Scientists at the Mars meeting said that there was only so much they could learn from Martian meteorites and from the various rovers and static landers sent to the Red Planet.
The next step had to be a mission that would retrieve samples from the Martian surface, blast them into space in a capsule and land them safely on Earth.
