NASA’s Perseverance rover failed to make history in its first attempt to collect rock samples on Mars. The space agency has revealed that the rover failed to extract a Martian rock sample. The percussive drill, coring bit, and sample tube processing worked as planned.
Scientists are still looking into the main reason behind failure and might take a few days to understand it. Perseverance project manager Jennifer Trosper said the team thinks the rock might have reacted in a different way during the coring process.
Trouble drilling Martian surface
The Martian surface has created issues in the past as well. The Phoenix Lander also faced trouble gathering “sticky” soil in 2008, for example, while Curiosity and InSight have also had trouble drilling into the surface of the planet.
This initial setback won’t put the Perseverance mission in danger; however, the space agency will want to keep such incidents at bay. The rover was sent to the Red Planet with an aim to collect samples that would be returned to Earth and help astronomers seek signs of ancient life on the planet. The fewer samples NASA gets, the fewer chances it will have to explore the history of the planet.
NASA’s future plans on Mars
NASA’s JPL has plans to collect around 38 rock samples from different geologic units and surface materials. Samples drilled out by Perseverance will be sealed and cached for a later mission that will collect them and bring them back to Earth. The space agency thinks the new site could contain Jezero’s deepest and oldest layers of exposed bedrock, providing clues of ancient microbial life on Mars if it ever existed.
Besides, Perseverance’s chopper buddy Ingenuity is preparing for its 11th flight. It will be a normal relocation flight and won’t be pushing the rotorcraft to its limits. The helicopter with its previous flight crossed one mile of total distance flown while traveling over the Martian. During the flight, it reached a record altitude of 40ft during the 310ft journey. It snapped several images to help NASA produce stereoscopic images of Raised Ridges.
