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.
