NASA announced on Monday (1) that the rover perseverance Successfully completed Mars XI soil sample collection. The achievement was revealed in a Twitter post with reference to the new architecture of the Mars Sample Return (MSR) program, which aims to bring samples from Mars to Earth in the 2030s.
Photo: NASA/Canaltech
The agency had said earlier that the eleventh sample would be from a sedimentary rock of a type that may containvital signs”, or ‘signatures’ left by living organisms in the past. Perseverance is able to perform various types of chemical analysis in search of these signatures, but not as detailed as those that can be performed in laboratories on Earth. The samples are important to us.
Exciting news: Not only have I recently gotten a new rock core (#11), but plans are coming together to bring these samples back to Earth. You can join a new group of robots (including next-generation helicopters!) in an unprecedented team.
more: https://t.co/Q3K8JPnQvS #SamplingMars pic.twitter.com/rL4evMZp3U
– NASA Perseverance on Mars (@NASAPersevere) August 2, 2022
The first 43 tube samples were Filled in September 2021. In total, NASA hopes to collect 38 samples from different locations on Mars, especially in the Jezero Crater, once a lake fed by a river, with favorable conditions for life.
in new architecture From MSR, persistence itself will be the main sampling method for a rover that will land on Mars called the Sample Retrieval Lander. Two similar ingenious helicopters, called Sample Retrival Helicopters, will help him.
Once in the probe, the samples will be transferred to the Mars Ascent Vehicle, a rocket that will send them into Mars orbit. Once there, they will be picked up by a spacecraft called the Earth Return Orbiter (ERO), which will make the trip back to Earth.
NASA expects to launch the Earth Return Probe and the Sample Recovery Probe in fall 2027 and summer (again, Northern Hemisphere) 2028, respectively. With this, the first samples of Martian soil will reach Earth in 2033.
source: space.com
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