The Robber’s perseverance sampling system is one step closer to grabbing precious Mars rocks for later analysis.
Perseverance, that landed in Mars’ Jezero crater on Feb. 18, last week successfully dropped the “belly pan” covering its sampling system.
“Sort things out before I let go of the ‘castable belly pan,'” said members of the mission team on Friday (March 12). via Perseverance’s official Twitter accountAfter the team received confirmation that Percy had dropped the belly pan as planned, they posted images and a new tweet Saturday (March 13) showing the cover safely on the surface of Mars.
“Next up is to check my sampling system with the lid off,” de tweet from Saturday added.
Related: NASA’s Persistence Mars rover mission in pictures
The belly pan is a protective cover that was placed over the sampling system. A short Twitter video from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory shows the implementation sequence, which is quite simple; the pan falls directly off the rover exposing the sampling system under Persistence.
The car-sized rover will store monsters in its stomach as it explores the Red Planet, looking for signs of ancient life in the Jezero Crater landing area and beyond.
“The rover’s abdomen houses all the equipment and supplies needed to collect samples. It contains a rotating drill carousel, a wheel that contains different types of drills. In addition, the 43 sample tubes are waiting to be filled.” NASA officials wrote in an explanation about the sampling system.
“While the rover’s large arm extends and drills rocks, the rover’s abdomen is home to a small robotic arm that acts as a ‘lab assistant’ for the big arm,” added NASA officials. “The small arm picks up new sample tubes and moves them to the drill and transfers filled sample containers to an area where they are sealed and stored.”
The samples will eventually be stored in one or more “depots” on the surface of Mars, which will be properly marked using local landmarks (such as rocks) and orbit coordinates.
A future monster return campaign will land close to the depot (s), pick up the samples and launch them into Mars orbit to return to Earth. That return campaign has not been fully approved or funded nevertheless, plans are underway by both NASA and the European Space Agency for a possible launch later this decade. The samples could reach Earth as early as 2031, NASA officials have said.
Bringing pristine pieces of the Red Planet to Earth allows scientists to search Mars life using advanced, non-portable laboratory instruments, assuming the mission meets all sample protection requirements and also to keep the Earth free of contaminants.
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