NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover has stumbled into an issue during its first sampling attempt.
« #SamplingMars is one of my most complicated tasks. Early …
NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover has stumbled into an issue during its first sampling attempt. « #SamplingMars is one of my most complicated tasks. Early pics and data show a successful drill hole, but no sample in the tube–something we’ve never seen in testing on Earth, » the rover’s Twitter account announced on Friday. « Mars keeps surprising us. We’re working through this new challenge. » In a release from the agency, the Southern California-based Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) which leads the mission wrote that data sent back to Earth after Perseverance’s first rock sampling attempt indicated « no rock was collected. » The 2,260-pound rover carries 43 titanium sample tubes in its mission to search for interesting rocks and sediment – potentially leading to signs of ancient microbial life on the red planet – and is exploring Jezero Crater: the region where it first landed in February. « While this is not the ‘hole-in-one’ we hoped for, there is always risk with breaking new ground, » Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington, D.
