Perseverance will soon begin stashing Martian sample tubes in a depot which will eventually hold 10 tubes deposited over around one month.
There are currently a number of rovers, landers, and orbiters exploring Mars, gathering more information than ever before about the planet’s environment and its history. But to understand more about this place and particularly whether there was ever life there, we need to bring samples back from Mars to Earth for analysis here. That’s what NASA aims to do over the next decade with its Mars Sample Return plan.
As part of that plan, the Perseverance rover is collecting samples of rock and regolith as it explores the Jezero Crater. These samples are then sealed in tubes which are deposited on the martian surface, ready to be collected and brought back to Earth by a future mission.
Perseverance will soon begin stashing these tubes in a “sample depot,” which will eventually hold 10 tubes deposited over around one month.
