The Perseverance rover has now saved 5 rock samples from Mars.
REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, WASHINGTON — Pirates Persistence drill and collect samples from all six Planetary rocks Mars by the end of December 2021. However, rover the size of a car has not been able to seal the titanium tube containing the material.
“I recently caught my sixth rock core and took on a new challenge. It seems that some gravel-sized debris is blocking my robotic arm from handing over the tube for sealing/storage. More images and data to come. #SamplingMars requires Perseverance,” said one member of the mission team, Friday (7/1/2022) via the Perseverance Twitter account. Space, Wednesday (12/1/2022).
Perseverance lands in February 2021 at Crater Lake 28 miles (45 kilometers) wide. The region is believed to have been a delta of lakes and rivers billions of years ago. The rover has two main mission objectives: hunting for signs of ancient Martian life and collecting several dozen samples from the region.
This pristine Martian material will be returned to Earth, possibly as early as 2031, by a joint NASA/European Space Agency campaign. Perseverance has saved five samples of Martian rock.
On December 29, 2021, a six-wheeled robot collects sample number six from a rock that is called the Issole mission team, moved material using a percussion drill at the end of a seven-foot (2.1 meter) long robotic arm.
Everything was going smoothly until Perseverance transferred the sample, which was already in its titanium tube, to the little carousel. It is a wheel-like structure that rotates on a plow chassis. The sensor registers resistance unexpectedly early during this step, indicating some kind of blockage.
Last weekend, the mission team instructed Perseverance to remove the sample tube from the carousel and take some photos of the mechanism. The pictures reveal pebbles in a small carousel. The Perseverance Team is working on this issue right now.
“The designers of the small carousel did consider the ability to continue operating successfully with debris,” said Louise Jandura, chief engineer for sampling and storage at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. NASA in Southern California, which manages the Perseverance mission, wrote in a blog post Friday (7/1/2022).
“However, this is the first time we are doing a debris cleanup, and we want to take whatever time is necessary to ensure this gravel comes out in a controlled and orderly manner,” Jandura added.
This is not the first sampling challenge Perseverance has faced on Mars. For example, the rover failed to collect any material during its first sampling attempt, which took place in August 2022. The mission team determined that the target rock on that occasion was likely too soft, shattering into pieces to fit into the tube.
“One thing we found was that when engineering challenges are hundreds of millions of miles (Mars is currently 215 million miles (346 million kilometers) from Earth), you need to take your time and be thorough. We’re going to do that here so that when we hit an unpaved Martian road again, the Perseverance sample collection is also ready to launch,” Jandura wrote.
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