- Excitement Builds for Finding Life on Mars After Perseverance Rover’s Ground-Penetrating Radar Discovery SciTechDaily
- Ground penetrating radar observations of the contact between the western delta and the crater floor of Jezero crater, Mars Science
- NASA’s Perseverance rover confirms presence of ancient lake on Mars and it may hold clues to past life Space.com
- Scientists More Hopeful Than Ever That Perseverance Has Already Found Life on Mars ScienceAlert
- Another sign of life on Mars: NASA finds evidence of an ancient lake that may have bred microbial lifeforms 3 Daily Mail
Tag Archives: Perseverance
NASA’s Perseverance Rover Completes Mars Sample Depot – Captures Amazing Variety of Martian Geology
Ten sample tubes, capturing an amazing variety of Martian geology, have been deposited on
Throughout its science campaigns, the rover has been taking a pair of samples from rocks the mission team deems scientifically significant. One sample from each pair taken so far now sits in the carefully arranged depot in the “Three Forks” region of Jezero Crater. The depot samples will serve as a backup set while the other half remain inside Perseverance, which would be the primary means to convey samples to a Sample Retrieval Lander as part of the campaign.
Mission scientists believe the igneous and sedimentary rock cores provide an excellent cross-section of the geologic processes that took place in Jezero shortly after the crater’s formation almost 4 billion years ago. The rover also deposited an atmospheric sample and what’s called a “witness” tube, which is used to determine if samples being collected might be contaminated with materials that traveled with the rover from Earth.
The titanium tubes were deposited on the surface in an intricate zigzag pattern, with each sample about 15 to 50 feet (5 to 15 meters) apart from one another to ensure they could be safely recovered. Adding time to the depot-creation process, the team needed to precisely map the location of each 7-inch-long (18.6-centimeter-long) tube and glove (adapter) combination so that the samples could be found even if covered with dust. The depot is on flat ground near the base of the raised, fan-shaped ancient river delta that formed long ago when a river flowed into a lake there.
“With the Three Forks depot in our rearview mirror, Perseverance is now headed up the delta,” said Rick Welch, Perseverance’s deputy project manager at
Next Science Campaign
Passing the Rocky Top outcrop represents the end of the rover’s Delta Front Campaign and the beginning of the rover’s Delta Top Campaign because of the geologic transition that takes place at that level.
“We found that from the base of the delta up to the level where Rocky Top is located, the rocks appear to have been deposited in a lake environment,” said Ken Farley, Perseverance project scientist at Caltech. “And those just above Rocky Top appear to have been created in or at the end of a Martian river flowing into the lake. As we ascend the delta into a river setting, we expect to move into rocks that are composed of larger grains – from sand to large boulders. Those materials likely originated in rocks outside of Jezero, eroded and then washed into the crater.”
One of the first stops the rover will make during the new science campaign is at a location the science team calls the “Curvilinear Unit.” Essentially a Martian sandbar, the unit is made of sediment that eons ago was deposited in a bend in one of Jezero’s inflowing river channels. The science team believes the Curvilinear Unit will be an excellent location to hunt for intriguing outcrops of sandstone and perhaps mudstone, and to get a glimpse at the geological processes beyond the walls of Jezero Crater.
More About the Mission
One of the key objectives for Perseverance’s mission on Mars is astrobiology, including caching samples that may contain signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will analyze the planet’s geology and past climate, lay the foundation for human exploration of the Red Planet, and be the first mission to gather Martian rock and soil samples.
Later NASA missions, in cooperation with ESA, will send spacecraft to Mars to collect these sealed samples from the surface and return them to Earth for in-depth analysis.
The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission is part of NASA’s Moon to Mars exploration approach, which includes Artemis missions to the Moon that will help pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet.
JPL, which is managed for NASA by Caltech, built and manages operations of the Perseverance rover.
Perseverance rover spots Ingenuity helicopter on sand dune
NASA’s Perseverance rover just caught another glimpse of its pioneering robotic cousin.
The car-sized Perseverance snapped a photo recently of the Ingenuity helicopter as the 4-pound (1.8 kilograms) rotorcraft sat atop a Red Planet sand dune.
“The #MarsHelicopter and I are closer together than we’ve been in a while, and guess who I spotted resting on a dune between flights. Can you believe Ingenuity is gearing up for Flight #39?” the Perseverance team said via Twitter (opens in new tab) on Wednesday (Jan. 11), in a post that featured a photo of the little chopper.
Related: Soar over Mars rover tracks with Ingenuity helicopter (video)
Ingenuity and Perseverance landed together inside Mars’ Jezero Crater in February 2021. The 28-mile-wide (45 kilometers) Jezero hosted a big lake and a river delta long ago, and Perseverance is scouring the area for signs of ancient life on Mars.
The six-wheeled robot is also collecting and caching dozens of samples for future return to Earth. For the past few weeks, Perseverance has been caching some of its sample tubes in a “depot” in a patch of Jezero’s floor that the mission team calls Three Forks.
Perseverance has so far deposited six of a planned 10 sample tubes (opens in new tab) in the Three Forks depot, which serves as a backup in case the rover isn’t healthy enough to haul material to a future NASA lander later this decade. A rocket aboard that lander will launch the samples to Mars orbit, where they’ll be picked up by a European spacecraft and hauled back to Earth. The samples could land here as early as 2033.
The depot samples are doubles; Perseverance is keeping a set of material drilled from the same target rocks on its body. If need be, two Ingenuity-like helicopters that will launch with the future lander will fly over to Three Forks and grab the sample tubes there one by one.
Ingenuity is currently serving as a scout for Perseverance, helping the rover team pick the best routes through the rough Jezero landscape and identify promising outcrops for in-depth study.
This work is part of the chopper’s extended mission. Not long after landing, Ingenuity aced its primary five-flight campaign, showing that powered flight is possible in the thin Martian atmosphere.
Ingenuity conducted its 39th Martian flight on Wednesday, covering 459 feet (140 meters) of ground over the course of nearly 79 seconds. To date, the chopper has flown a total of 25,690 feet (7,830 m) on Mars and stayed airborne for more than 64 minutes, according to the mission’s flight log (opens in new tab).
Perseverance has captured footage of Ingenuity before. The rover snapped photos of the chopper just after it deployed onto Jezero’s floor, for example, and also recorded video of Ingenuity’s 13th flight, which took place in September 2021.
Mike Wall is the author of “Out There (opens in new tab)” (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a book about the search for alien life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall (opens in new tab). Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom (opens in new tab) and on Facebook (opens in new tab).
Perseverance rover marks 1 Mars year on Red Planet
NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover is wrapping up its prime mission on the Red Planet.
The car-sized Perseverance rover landed on the floor of Mars’ Jezero Crater on Feb. 18, 2021, kicking off an ambitious surface mission designed to last one Red Planet year, which is about 687 Earth days.
That time is now up; the Mars calendar turned for Perseverance on Friday (Jan. 6). But don’t fret: The six-wheeled robot will transition seamlessly into an extended mission on Saturday (Jan. 7).
Related: 12 amazing photos from the Perseverance rover’s 1st Earth year on Mars
Perseverance has two main tasks on the Red Planet. The rover is hunting for possible signs of Mars life on the floor of the 28-mile-wide (45 kilometers) Jezero, which hosted a big lake and a river delta billions of years ago. Perseverance is also collecting and caching dozens of samples, which a joint NASA-European Space Agency (ESA) campaign will bring to Earth for detailed study in the early 2030s, if all goes according to plan.
That campaign will launch a rocket-toting NASA lander as well as an ESA Earth-return orbiter to the Red Planet in the mid to late 2020s. The plan calls for Perseverance to drive its samples over to the lander; the rocket will then launch the precious cargo to Mars orbit, where the ESA probe will snag it and haul the material back to Earth.
Perseverance has made a lot of progress on the sampling front to date. The rover has already filled up and sealed 18 of its 38 titanium sampling tubes (opens in new tab) as well as three of its five “witness tubes,” which will help mission team members assess the cleanliness of Perseverance’s sampling system.
And the rover has begun caching samples, too, to date dropping four of a planned 10 tubes on a patch of Jezero’s floor that the mission team calls Three Forks. This depot is a backup, to cover for the possibility that Perseverance won’t be able to ferry its samples to the lander when the time comes. (The rover is in good shape now, but there’s no guarantee its health will hold through the end of the decade.)
In that case, two small helicopters that will launch aboard the lander will fetch the sample tubes from the depot one by one.
With this hedge in mind, the mission team has been collecting two samples from each of its target rocks. Perseverance is keeping one set on board and caching the other set.
The fetch helicopters will be based heavily on Ingenuity, the 4-pound (1.8 kilograms) chopper that traveled to Mars with Perseverance.
Ingenuity’s main job was to show that aerial exploration is possible on Mars despite the planet’s thin atmosphere, which is just 1% as dense as that of Earth at sea level. The little rotorcraft quickly achieved that goal during a five-flight demonstration campaign and is now serving as a scout for Perseverance on an ambitious extended mission.
Ingenuity now has 37 flights under its belt, which together have covered a total of 4.7 miles (7.6 kilometers). Perseverance, for its part, has racked up nearly 8.7 miles (14.0 km) of off-Earth driving, and that total will climb considerably during its extended mission.
After it finishes dropping samples at the Three Forks depot, Perseverance will head for the top of Jezero’s ancient river delta, likely finishing the climb in February. The rover will then explore the region for the next eight months or so, looking for, among other things, rocks that were washed into the crater by Jezero’s ancient river.
“The Delta Top Campaign is our opportunity to get a glimpse at the geological process beyond the walls of Jezero Crater,” Perseverance deputy project scientist Katie Stack Morgan, of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, said in a statement last month (opens in new tab).
“Billions of years ago, a raging river carried debris and boulders from miles beyond the walls of Jezero,” she said. “We are going to explore these ancient river deposits and obtain samples from their long-traveled boulders and rocks.”
Mike Wall is the author of “Out There (opens in new tab)” (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a book about the search for alien life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall (opens in new tab). Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom (opens in new tab) or on Facebook (opens in new tab).
NASA’s epic space images from the James Webb, Juno and Perseverance in 2022
‘The dawn of a new era in astronomy: NASA shared epic space images in 2022 that captured the birth of stars, Jupiter’s powerful storms and swirling iridescent sands on Mars
- NASA had an epic year with the James Webb Space Telescope capturing images of never-before-seen cosmos, such as star-forming regions, a 13.5 billion-year-old galaxy and a new look at the Pillars of Creation
- Juno captivated the globe this year with new pictures of the cyclones twisting on Jupiter and the Perseverance rover continued to send amazing images from Mars
- NASA closed the year off by completing the first phase of its Artemis mission, which will put human boots back on the moon – and shared exciting images of the Orion capsule during its trip to the moon and back
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This year was the dawn of a new era in astronomy.
The world was captivated by stunning images of stars birthing from fiery clouds, violent storms flowing throughout Jupiter and iridescent sands swirling across the barren landscape of Mars.
Scientists spent much of 2022 sifting through mountains of data from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and uncovered never-before-seen cosmic wonders that formed in the early universe.
One of the epic images includes the oldest galaxy that formed 13.5 billion years ago – when the universe was just 350 million years old.
A star is born: NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope captured the ‘once-hidden’ beginnings of a very young star during its exploration to find the first galaxies. The telescope was able to ‘see’ the once invisible dust and clouds surrounding the region and in the center of the hourglass is the young star collecting surrounding material to help it grow
JWST also shared a stunning look at the star-forming region called NGC 3324 in the Carina Nebula, revealing a landscape of ‘mountains’ and ‘valleys’ of gas and dust.
Juno, NASA’s probe tasked with investigating Jupiter, snapped images of violent cyclones on the gas giant that look like they were created by a brush swooshing paint on a canvas.
And while the Red Planet may be known as a wasteland, the American space agency’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spotted ripples of sand that appear to be dancing through a Martian crater.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a statement this month: ‘2022 will go down in the history books as one of the most accomplished years across all of NASA’s missions.
‘There’s so much to look forward to in 2023 too: More stunning discoveries from Webb telescope, climate missions that will tell us more about how our Earth is changing, continued science on the International Space Station, groundbreaking aeronautics developments with the X-59 and X-57 experimental aircraft, the selection of the first astronauts to go to the Moon in more than 50 years, and more. Space is the place and NASA proves humanity’s reach is limitless!’
A true work of art: Juno captured colossal cyclones at Jupiter’s north pole, similar to hurricanes on Earth – but move five times faster. This image was snapped in September and looks more like an oil painting than a photograph of a distant planet
A real beauty: JWST shared new images of Jupiter in 2022 that capture its stunning auroras glowing at the gas giant’s north and south poles. The auroras are caused by fluctuations in the planet’s magnetic field. As Jupiter rotates, it drags its magnetic field bombarded by particles of solar wind
The sands of time: Ripples in sand on Mars appear in stunning teal and purple when color is enhanced. The image is an aerial view of the center of Gamboa Crater, which features giant sand dunes carved out by Martian winds
A trip back in time: JWST looked back 13.5 billion years to capture never-before-seen individual globular clusters around distant elliptical galaxies, knots of star formation within spiral galaxies and thousands of faint galaxies in the background
An everlasting ring: The Southern Ring nebula, also known as the ‘Eight-Burst’ nebula, is a planetary nebula – an expanding, glowing shell of ionized gas ejected from red giant stars late in their lives. NASA’s JWST captured this stunning image, revealing a cloak of dust around the second star (left in red)
Clash of the titans: JWST captured a stunning image of the first compact galaxies ever seen by human eyes. Stephan’s Quintet is a group of five galaxies in the constellation Pegasus. Four of the five galaxies within the quintet are locked in a ‘cosmic dance’ of repeated close encounters
The heart of the galaxy: M74, a spiral galaxy 32 million light-years away and this image captures a detailed look of its center. JWST’s sharp vision revealed delicate filaments of gas and dust in the grandiose spiral arms that wind outwards from the center of this image
Reaching for the stars: This detailed image of the iconic Pillars of Creation, reveals its columns of cool interstellar gas and dust surrounded by countless twinkling stars. This is the first time the gas and dust can be seen clumping together and populations of forming stars, with some still encased in dust, are visible
Rockin’ and rollin’ on Mars: NASA’s Perseverance rover shared the first image of ‘Bettys Rock’ on the Red Planet using one of its navigation cameras. The rock is named after Bettys Rock in Shenandoah National Park. A key objective for Perseverance’s mission on Mars is astrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life
Fly me to the moon: NASA’s Orion made an epic journey to the moon and back. While on its 20th day of the 25-day mission, the capsule snapped an image of Earth’s natural satellite as it headed back home. Orion splashed down in the Pacific Ocean on December 11, completing the first phase of the Artemis mission that will put humans back on the moon
Honey, I’m home: Orion was approaching Earth on December 11 and snapped an image of our world before splashing down in the Pacific Ocean
Mars dust won’t bury Perseverance rover’s rock sample tubes
Neither dust nor wind nor dark of night will disturb new caches of precious Mars samples on the Red Planet.
This month, NASA’s Perseverance rover has been dropping lightsaber-shaped caches of material on the surface of Mars to lie in wait as backup for a future sample-return mission. Perseverance collects two samples at each location and carries one set with it. If the rover can’t bear the samples in its belly to a waiting spacecraft itself, two fetch helicopters will tote the backup surface tubes to the return rocket instead in the 2030s.
The epic NASA-European joint mission will allow researchers on Earth to scrutinize the tubed samples for signatures of life. Given the fetch mission isn’t expected to land until the 2030s, however, officials at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory said on Twitter that they’ve heard public concerns about wind or dust hurting the tubes, or making the caches difficult to retrieve.
“My team’s not worried,” the official Perseverance account tweeted (opens in new tab) Dec. 23, along with a series of evidence showing why the tubes won’t travel far — and how NASA is tracking their deposit locations as the ultimate backup.
Related: 12 amazing photos from the Perseverance rover’s 1st year on Mars
Unlike the fictional, powerful wind storm depicted at the start of “The Martian” (2015), the Red Planet has gentle gusts. Due to its thin atmosphere at only one-hundredth the pressure of Earth’s at sea level, Mars wind largely is confined to picking up fine sand grains.
“Winds around here can pick up *speed,* but they don’t pick up a lot of *stuff.* Think fast, but not strong,” the Perseverance account tweeted. In practical terms, winds are not the threat for nuclear-powered missions like Perseverance. The NASA Curiosity rover, for example, is still running after 10 Earth years on Mars with only a thin layer of dust covering the machinery, the account noted.
That said, dust coverage on solar panels (like NASA’s recently concluded InSight Mars lander mission) can pose a long-term threat to exploration, as they slowly choke off the supply to solar power — absent a lucky gust of wind. “It’s spelled the eventual end of more than one solar-powered explorer,” the Twitter thread noted of the dust.
Related: Can we save Mars robots from death by dust?
What about something smaller, sitting low on the surface? See this ribbon cable leading to @NASAInSight’s seismometer? After four years: a thin coat of dust, but easy to spot. (The pile of dirt you see over part of it is only there because InSight purposely put it there.) pic.twitter.com/UdpHVY18eADecember 23, 2022
Even for tubes that lie low on the surface, NASA expects they will be “easy to spot” based on examples like older footage from InSight. After four Earth years lying on the Red Planet ground, cables from InSight were admittedly dusty, but still recognizable.
“Not only do we expect the sample tubes not to be covered up,” the Perseverance account tweeted alongside a map, “but I’m also very carefully documenting exactly where I put them down. So going back to them again later shouldn’t be an issue.”
The backup mission is currently expected to arrive in nine years, or around 2031. Launch opportunities between Earth and Mars arise roughly every two years, giving several chances to send a mission out there before 2040 — assuming that funding for the sample return mission holds and technology development proceeds to plan.
Elizabeth Howell is the co-author of “Why Am I Taller (opens in new tab)?” (ECW Press, 2022; with Canadian astronaut Dave Williams), a book about space medicine. Follow her on Twitter @howellspace (opens in new tab). Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom (opens in new tab) or Facebook (opens in new tab).
Mars Perseverance rover drops biggest early Christmas gift for 2033 yet
NASA’s Perseverance rover keeps dropping early Christmas presents on Mars.
On Friday (Dec. 23), NASA announced that Perseverance successfully dropped its second rock sample tube on the Martian surface. And while it’s not the first Mars sample Perseverance has dropped for a potential future mission to bring to Earth in 2033, it certainly is the biggest.
“My second sample drop is looking good!” NASA’s Perseverance rover team wrote in a Twitter update (opens in new tab) Friday. “This tube holds a piece of sedimentary rock from the edge of the ancient river delta here — the longest rock core I’ve taken to date.”
Related: 12 amazing photos from the Perseverance’s 1st year on Mars
The longest rock core collected by Perseverance is a sample called “Mageik,” which the rover drilled out of the rock “Amalik” this fall from the “Enchanted Lake” region of ancient delta in its Jezero Crater landing site.
“The tube itself is about the size of a marker, and I measured the rock core sample inside at 7.36 cm (about 2.9 inches),” NASA wrote as Perseverance on Twitter (opens in new tab). Perseverance dropped its first sample tube at a nearby spot on Wednesday (Dec. 21).
Perseverance is dropping 10 sealed tubes containing Mars rock samples, which resemble miniature lightsabers from Star Wars, for potential collection by a future Mars Sample Return mission. That mission and an orbiter could launch to Mars by 2028 and return the sample tubes to Earth five years later. If all goes according to plan, Perseverance or two small helicopters will deliver Mars samples to a lander that would then launch them into space so that a waiting orbiter can collect them for the trip back to Earth.
The samples Perseverance is dropping are backups. The rover collected twin samples at each drill site, storing one inside its body while dropping the other in case a backup is needed. Perseverance is expected to deliver the ones it carries to the waiting lander if the nuclear-powered lasts long enough to reach the Mars Sample Return lander at the end of the decade.
NASA’s Perseverance rover landed on Mars in February 2021. It’s primary mission will last two years, but NASA hopes the rover could live much longer. Its predecessor, the nuclear-powered Curiosity rover, recently celebrated its 10th anniversary on Mars in August.
Email Tariq Malik at tmalik@space.com or follow him @tariqjmalik (opens in new tab). Follow us @Spacedotcom (opens in new tab), Facebook (opens in new tab) and Instagram (opens in new tab).
Perseverance Left Scientists a Present on Mars, But They Can’t Open It Until 2033 : ScienceAlert
In the not-too-distant future, a planetary scientist will open up a tube of rocks that came from Mars.
Thanks to the Perseverance rover, there are at least 17 of these rock and regolith samples, just waiting for analysis on Earth. To get them, the rover has covered about 13 kilometers (8 miles) on its Mars geology field trip.
The rover has been drilling and scooping since shortly after landing, squirreling away rocks and sand into special tubes for transport.
It dropped its first load near a place called “Three Forks” this week. That tube contains bits of igneous rock it found in January of this year.
It wasn’t just a “drop and run”. Mission engineers had to make sure the tube landed safely. So, they did it slowly. First, Perseverance pulled the container out of its belly.
Then it looked everything over with a camera before dropping the tube down 90 centimeters onto the surface.
Then another image showed mission engineers the sample was safely in position on its side for easy pickup.
Eventually, all the containers Perseverance has filled will make their way to labs on Earth. Scientists will analyze them to understand the chemical and mineral properties of the samples.
From there, they can construct a more accurate geological and atmospheric history of the Red Planet.
“Choosing the first depot on Mars makes this exploration campaign very real and tangible,” said David Parker, ESA’s director of Human and Robotic Exploration. “Now we have a place to revisit with samples waiting for us there.”
What will we learn from the Perseverance Mars rock samples?
Mars is an enigma of a planet. Its history is complex. Volcanoes exist there. How long ago were they active?
Canyons split the landscape. What caused those tectonic actions? Craters scar the planet, digging up material from deep beneath the surface. And, places on Mars clearly show evidence of flowing liquid water. Yet, no water flows there now. It’s all locked up in subsurface ice or at the poles.
So, how do we find out more about the geological history of the planet?
The most direct way is to look at rock samples. Mars has igneous rock, as well as sandstones, mudstones, and clays. And, of course, there’s dust and sand nearly everywhere. All of those can tell something about the time on Mars when lava flowed, lakes and oceans existed, and when it all happened.
Detailed technical analysis of igneous rocks will tell how long ago the volcanoes were active. Chemical and mineralogical clues in Mars rocks will help planetary scientists understand if they were in contact with water. Finally, all of that information should help scientists figure out if and when Mars could have supported life.
The rock samples that Perseverance gathers come from different rock “regimes” in Jezero Crater. Orbital images show that this region was once an ancient delta that was flooded with water. It appears to be rich in clay minerals and carbonates, which form only in the presence of water.
Those same carbonates contain a record of Mars’s ancient climate. Yet, here’s another interesting thing about them: on Earth, living organisms can also produce carbonates.
It’s not clear if those on Mars have the same life-friendly origin, but it does make Jezero Crater a tantalizing place to sample.
Establishing a rock pipeline from Mars to Earth
The sample-gathering expedition using the tubes has been part of the program from the beginning. The original idea was to have the rover gather and deliver them to the NASA Sample Return Lander (SRL).
That mission is being planned and built by NASA and the European Space Agency for launch later this decade. It should land in Jezero Crater near Perseverance to make for easy delivery of the tubes. The lander is equipped with a sample transfer arm built by ESA for the job.
Of course, scientists don’t want to leave anything to chance. So, the mission also has a backup plan in case Perseverance can’t deliver. Mission scientists will send a couple of small helicopters out to gather the samples.
We know that could work because the Ingenuity chopper has been cranking away in overtime, showing scientists just what a Mars chopper can do.
Once the rocks are onboard the SRL, they’ll get loaded into a small rocket that will take off from the surface.
Once in space, it will deliver them to an ESA-built spacecraft orbiting Mars for eventual return to Earth. If all goes well, the rocks are expected to be in labs for more detailed study sometime in 2033.
This article was originally published by Universe Today. Read the original article.
NASA’s Mars Perseverance Rover Deposits First Sample on Martian Surface for Possible Return to Earth
The sample tube, which is filled with rock, will be one of 10 forming a depot of tubes that the
Perseverance has been taking duplicate samples from rock targets the mission selects. The rover currently has the other 17 samples (including one atmospheric sample) taken so far in its belly. Based on the architecture of the Mars Sample Return campaign, the rover would deliver samples to a future robotic lander. The lander would, in turn, use a robotic arm to place the samples in a containment capsule aboard a small rocket that would blast off to Mars orbit, where another spacecraft would capture the sample container and return it safely to Earth.
The depot will serve as a backup if Perseverance can’t deliver its samples. In that case, a pair of Sample Recovery Helicopters would be called upon to finish the job.
The first sample to drop was a chalk-size core of igneous rock informally named “Malay,” which was collected on January 31, 2022, in a region of Mars’ Jezero Crater called “South Séítah.” Perseverance’s complex Sampling and Caching System took almost an hour to retrieve the metal tube from inside the rover’s belly, view it one last time with its internal CacheCam, and drop the sample roughly 3 feet (89 centimeters) onto a carefully selected patch of Martian surface.
But the job wasn’t done for engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, which built Perseverance and leads the mission. Once they confirmed the tube had dropped, the team positioned the WATSON camera located at the end of Perseverance’s 7-foot-long (2-meter-long) robotic arm to peer beneath the rover, checking to be sure that the tube hadn’t rolled into the path of the rover’s wheels.
They also wanted to ensure the tube hadn’t landed in such a way that it was standing on its end (each tube has a flat end piece called a “glove” to make it easier to be picked up by future missions). That occurred less than 5% of the time during testing with Perseverance’s Earthly twin in
Bringing Mars Rock Samples Back to Earth: This short animation features key moments of NASA and ESA’s Mars Sample Return campaign, from landing on Mars and securing the sample tubes to launching them off the surface and ferrying them back to Earth. Credit: NASA/ESA/JPL-Caltech/GSFC/MSFC
More About the Mission
A key objective for Perseverance’s mission on Mars is astrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will characterize the planet’s geology and past climate, pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet, and be the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith (broken rock and dust).
Subsequent NASA missions, in cooperation with ESA (European Space Agency), would send spacecraft to Mars to collect these sealed samples from the surface and return them to Earth for in-depth analysis.
The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission is part of NASA’s Moon to Mars exploration approach, which includes Artemis missions to the Moon that will help prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet.
JPL, which is managed for NASA by Caltech in Pasadena, California, built and manages operations of the Perseverance rover.
NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover drops 1st sample on Martian surface
Santa came early to Mars this year.
NASA’s Perseverance mission dropped its first cache of precious rock samples on the sands of Mars, leaving behind a record of material that a future mission could bring back to Earth. It’s a key moment in the search for life on Mars, NASA officials said in a statement on Wednesday (Dec. 21).
The rover’s contribution to seeking “ancient microbial life” in an old river delta, as NASA’s Jet Propulsion said in an update (opens in new tab), will include 10 titanium tubes deposited at this location, nicknamed “Three Forks.”
Sometime in the 2030s, if schedules hold, either Perseverance or two helicopters (similar to the currently flying Ingenuity Mars helicopter that finished its 37th flight days ago) will ferry rocky tubes like this in Jezero Crater to a waiting ship.
Related: Perseverance Mars rover to start caching samples for future return to Earth
This tube is a backup depot, however; Perseverance collects twin samples at each location and its mission calls for it to do the delivery itself, using the set of caches inside the rover. But if necessary, the helicopters could be called upon to pick up the backup tubes left on the Martian surface.
However the tubes get delivered, a spacecraft will launch them to space and hand the samples off to a waiting orbiter to return the Martian samples to Earth. Aside from a few meteorites carved off of Mars that fell onto our planet, the historic shipment will represent the first time Red Planet rocks have made it to Earth.
One of the key ingredients of life appears abundant on Mars, or at least it was in ancient times: Water. Huge canyons, vast icebergs and potential underwater reservoirs suggest Mars was rich with water in the ancient past, despite the planet’s dried-up and dusty appearance today.
But whether there was enough to support life requires “ground truth,” which is where Perseverance comes in. A rover can only carry so many instruments with it, however; sending the samples back to Earth will allow entire laboratories the chance to review the Martian bits for signatures of ancient life.
The first sample to hit the regolith is roughly the size of a piece of chalk, collected from an igneous rock nicknamed “Malay” on Jan. 31 in a region called “South Séítah.” South Séítah is itself significant; scientists announced weeks before taking the sample that they had found organics, a possible ingredient of life, in the same area.
The car-sized Perseverance took about an hour to spit out the tube from its belly, where the sampling and caching system resides. The tube fell three feet (89 centimeters) to a flat spot of the Martian surface as planned, and engineers on Earth imaged the area to make sure they don’t accidentally wheel over it as Perseverance drives away.
In photos: 12 amazing pictures from the Perseverance rover’s 1st year on Mars
The pictures came back showing the tube was well out of the way and flat, but NASA did have a contingency plan in place in case the tube ended up upright in the sand. “The mission has written a series of commands for Perseverance to carefully knock the tube over with part of the turret at the end of its robotic arm,” agency officials wrote.
Engineers tested the tube-flattening procedure with a Perseverance-like rover inside the “Mars yard,” an adapted sandbox at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California where machines are tested in conditions similar to the Red Planet. Upright deposits happened about five percent of the time in these simulations, which is why the mission has backup.
The milestone drop is happening just weeks before the end of Perseverance’s prime mission on Jan. 6, 2023; the mission will notch two Earth years on the Martian surface on Feb. 18. The rover will continue roving via a mission extension, based on its science publications and contributions like this to the sample return.
“It’s a nice alignment that, just as we’re starting our cache, we’re also closing this first chapter of the mission,” Rick Welch, Perseverance’s deputy project manager at JPL, said in the same statement.
Elizabeth Howell is the co-author of “Why Am I Taller (opens in new tab)?” (ECW Press, 2022; with Canadian astronaut Dave Williams), a book about space medicine. Follow her on Twitter @howellspace (opens in new tab). Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom (opens in new tab) or Facebook (opens in new tab).