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EI2GYB > ASTRO 10.09.21 09:50l 56 Lines 2878 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 14302_EI2GYB
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Subj: Perseverance samples its first (two) rocks
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Sent: 210910/0748Z @:EI2GYB.DGL.IRL.EURO #:14302 BPQ6.0.22
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Perseverance samples its first (two) rocks
Sometimes, the rocks fail you. That's what happened to the Perseverance rover
during its first attempted sample collection in Jezero Crater.
NASA's newest rover is on a mission to not only explore Mars but collect
samples for future study on Earth. Perseverance is carrying 43 sample tubes,
inside which it will store drilled samples of rock for later collection. The
first step in this process, naturally, is storing each sample in a tube.
But on Aug. 6, NASA announced that the rover's first collection attempt had
turned up empty. The autonomous sample collection process saw the rover
successfully drill into the rock and place the result into a tube. But a
subsequent step - using a probe to measure the volume of the sample in the tube
- indicated nothing was inside. "The probe did not encounter the expected
resistance that would be there if a sample were inside the tube," said
Perseverance's surface mission manager, Jessica Samuels of NASA's Jet
Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), in a press release.
Mission controllers were confident the rover's drill and coring bit had
operated properly. So, they concluded, it was the rock that had misbehaved.
Called Roubion, this first target is what researchers call a paver stone -
flat, polygonal rocks they believe are some of the oldest in the crater. But
such rocks are so old and weathered that their crumbly texture thwarted
sampling attempts.
To find a better target, controllers drove to a ridge called Citadelle, with
outcroppings of rocks very different from the paver stones. And on Sept. 2,
Perseverance successfully completed its first sample collection. This time,
images from the rover showed the rock core, a bit wider than a pencil, snug in
its sample tube.
The team still hopes to revisit sampling a paver stone in the future. Next
time, though, they'll likely target a different, less weathered type of paver
in the hopes that such rocks will provide similar information - from inside a
sample tube this time.
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