It has been believed by a team at NASA that Martian soil can be effectively procured by 2022. But to make it a reality, the space agency needs the help from commercial spaceflight provider SpaceX.

SpaceX Dragon capsule - dubbed as Red Dragon - was proposed by NASA in 2011 to deliver equipment to Mars as a landing craft. However, NASA now believed that Red Dragon is the best candidate to serve the purpose of brining the dirt back from Mars.

In a recent announcement, NASA said that it has been looking forward to bring back on earth the samples collected by rovers, particularly the upcoming Mars 2020 rover.

NASA was initially not sure if the Earth re-entry capsule could land on Mars with heavy modifications. But NASA planners have told to Space. com that the craft looks good to survive the trip to transfer samples and house a second vehicle to send them back to earth.

To avoid the need of humans going to Mars themselves to pick up those samples, scientists required a cost-effective alternative. And they now believe that Red Dragon looks as an apt option to perform the task.

The idea of sending Red Dragon to Mars for collection of samples and bringing them back to earth is still in proposals and no such mission has been planned yet. However, NASA believes that such a mission could be possible in a budget.

"The significance of the work is that it opens the door to the efficient achievement of an important planetary science objective at a lower complexity level and, by extension, at potentially lower cost than previously considered", said Andrew Gonzales, leader of the NASA team studying the idea.