When does NASA or another space agency hope to be able to bring back soil samples from Mars?
MtM
As far as I have heard, Nasa was planning to bring back samples in 2008, but the failures of recent Mars missions caused a rethink. A look at Nasa’s website suggests that there are no firm plans to do so at the moment. A bit more info here: http://www.spacetoday.org/SolSys/Mars/MarsExploration/MarsScout2007.html
The Russians were planning such a mission for 2007, as of August last year.