According to NASA, owing to the conflict of interest in different bodies involved in Mars Mission project there has been a loss of millions of dollars. However, NASA is unwilling to disclose the party who could be held responsible for such a big delay. But it said that it has not been the cause behind the delay. Evidently, after a ninth months delay NASA chose a University of Colorado proposal for a $485 million Mars mission.

 

Earlier, NASA had chosen year 2011 for the Mars Scout program, but now, due to astronomical reasons the same will be carried out in the year 2013. The US space agency said that the last December a "serious" conflict of interest in one of two proposals forced it to disband the board formed to pick the winner, and create a new panel to award the contract and that took lots of time.

 

On the other hand, Bruce Jakosky, an associate director for the Colorado lab, and who was a principal investigator for the mission disclosed that the conflict was not with the Colorado proposal. NASA in its official statement said that they cannot disclose details of the conflict of interest and party involved as it involved proprietary information. Evidently, the mission is aimed to do research in the Martian atmosphere vis-à-vis its evolution and extinction of water from it.