Over thelast few week , NASA ’s Perseverance has been working hard to garner its first of many sampling that will one twenty-four hour period be sent back to Earth where they can be analyzed in more detail than what the roamer can do on the Red Planet . These small bits of Martian rocks might finally answer the question if there was ever spirit on Mars .
On August 6 , Perseverance bore into anintriguing rockfrom which a sample was extracted into the roll up vacuum tube . All went as design , it appeared successful and the container was treat as intended . At least data from that part of the mission was all fine . But it seems no sample was collected . Data transport back to Earth from the collecting tube indicates no rock candy sampling was amass .
tenaciousness is equip with 43 Ti sampling tubes that can be used to collect rocks and regolith , the loose soil on the surface of Mars . The bird of passage ’s Sampling and Caching System is made of a robotlike arm 2 m ( 7 feet ) in length that pull out the sample and seal off them into the container .
“ The try process is autonomous from begin to cease , ” Jessica Samuels , the surface mission manager for Perseverance at NASA ’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory ( JPL ) , say in astatement . “ One of the steps that occurs after grade a probe into the collection tube is to measure the bulk of the sampling . The investigation did not bump the expected electric resistance that would be there if a sample were inside the subway . ”
The Perseverance squad will now use the John Broadus Watson ( Wide Angle Topographic Sensor for Operations and eNgineering ) imager to look into the borehole and work out what happened .
The leading hypothesis suggests that the demerit is not in the system but in the rock . It would n’t be the first time that rock and roll and dirt on Mars have defied anticipation . The ultimately stillborn deployment of theembattled Martian “ Mole”on NASA ’s InSight Mars lander is arecent deterrent example of that .
“ The initial cerebration is that the empty tube is more likely a result of the rock and roll target not react the way we expected during coring , and less likely a ironware government issue with the Sampling and Caching System , ” say Jennifer Trosper , undertaking manager for Perseverance at JPL . “ Over the next few days , the squad will be spending more time analyze the information we have , and also acquiring some additional diagnostic datum to brook understanding the root cause for the empty tube . ”
Setbacks such as this are plebeian when set about things for the first metre , specially when they are done autonomously by a robot on a different humans .
“ While this is not the ‘ hole - in - one ' we hoped for , there is always risk of exposure with break new ground , ” said Thomas Zurbuchen , associate executive of NASA ’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington . “ I ’m surefooted we have the right team work this , and we will hang on toward a solution to secure next success . ”
