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NASA is still planning how to get to Mars to pick up tubes full of rocks to bring back to Earth, but an important step in that journey is about to happen. The Perseverance rover is ready to build „the first sample depot on another world,“ NASA said in a statement Friday.
The sample depot is what NASA is calling the drop-off spot for some of the tubes the rover has already stuffed with rocks and regolith (crushed up rock and dust). These are the focus of Mars Sample Return, or MSR, a complex NASA-European Space Agency mission that could get those rocks to Earth in the 2030s.
Ideally, Perseverance will still be rolling around Jezero Crater when MSR arrives, and will be able to greet the mission in person to deliver its rock samples. But the mission is too important to leave that up to chance. We know how tough Mars can be on our robotic emissaries. The sample depot will offer another way to collect the rock tubes.
