Exciting news! The Dragon capsule, using drag and retro-thrusters to decelerate, could even land at much higher elevations than previous Mars missions using parachutes for breaking.<p>There also was the idea to use it for sample return missions, not sure what became of that. EDIT: Seems to be planned for 2022 at the earliest, see <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.space.com&#x2F;30504-spacex-red-dragon-mars-sample-return.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.space.com&#x2F;30504-spacex-red-dragon-mars-sample-ret...</a>