Perseverance rover to begin building Martian sample depot

Within the coming days, NASA’s Perseverance rover is predicted to start constructing the primary pattern depot on one other world. It will mark a vital milestone within the NASA-ESA (European Area Company) Mars Pattern Return marketing campaign, which goals to carry Mars samples to Earth for nearer research.

The depot-building course of begins when the rover drops considered one of its titanium pattern tubes carrying a chalk-size core of rock from its stomach 2.9 ft (88.8 centimeters) onto the bottom at an space inside Jezero Crater nicknamed “Three Forks.” Over the course of 30 or so days, Perseverance will deposit a complete of 10 tubes that carry samples representing the variety of the rock document in Jezero Crater.

The rover has been taking a pair of samples from every of its rock targets. Half of each pair will probably be deposited at Three Forks as a backup set, and the opposite half will stay inside Perseverance, which would be the main means to convey the collected samples to the Mars launch automobile as a part of the marketing campaign.

“The samples for this depot – and the duplicates held aboard Perseverance – are an unbelievable set consultant of the world explored in the course of the prime mission,” mentioned Meenakshi Wadhwa, the Mars Pattern Return program principal scientist from Arizona State College. “We not solely have igneous and sedimentary rocks that document not less than two and presumably 4 or much more distinct kinds of aqueous alteration, but in addition regolith, environment, and a witness tube.”

Easy methods to Construct a Depot

One of many first necessities to construct a pattern depot on Mars is to discover a stage, rock-free stretch of terrain in Jezero Crater the place there’s room for every tube to be deposited.

“To this point, Mars missions required only one good touchdown zone; we want 11,” mentioned Richard Prepare dinner, Mars Pattern Return program supervisor at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “The primary one is for the Pattern Retrieval Lander, however then we want 10 extra within the neighborhood for our Pattern Restoration Helicopters to carry out takeoffs and landings, and driving too.”

After deciding on an appropriate website, the marketing campaign’s subsequent process was to determine precisely the place and methods to deploy the tubes inside that location. “You may’t merely drop them in an enormous pile as a result of the restoration helicopters are designed to work together with just one tube at a time,” mentioned Prepare dinner. The helicopters are supposed to function a backup, identical to the depot. To make sure a helicopter may retrieve samples with out disturbing the remainder of the depot or encountering any obstructions from the occasional rock or ripple, every tube-drop location may have an “space of operation” not less than 18 ft (5.5 meters) in diameter. To that finish, the tubes will probably be deposited on the floor in an intricate zigzag sample, with every pattern 16 to 49 ft (5 to fifteen meters) aside from each other.

The depot’s success will depend upon correct placement of the tubes – a course of that may take over a month. Earlier than and after Perseverance drops every tube, mission controllers will assessment a large number of pictures from the rover. This evaluation may also give the Mars Pattern Return workforce the exact information essential to find the tubes within the occasion of the samples changing into lined by mud or sand earlier than they’re collected.

Perseverance’s Prolonged Mission

Perseverance’s prime mission will conclude on Jan. 6, 2023 – one Mars 12 months (about 687 Earth days) after its Feb. 18, 2021, touchdown.

“We are going to nonetheless be working the pattern depot deployment when our prolonged mission begins on Jan. 7, so nothing adjustments from that perspective,” mentioned Artwork Thompson, Perseverance’s venture supervisor at JPL. “Nonetheless, as soon as the desk is about at Three Forks, we’ll head to the highest of the delta. The science workforce desires to take a superb go searching up there.”

Known as the Delta High Marketing campaign, this new science part will start when Perseverance finishes its ascent of the delta’s steep embankment and arrives on the expanse that types the higher floor of the Jezero delta, in all probability someday in February. Throughout this roughly eight-month marketing campaign, the science workforce will probably be looking out for boulders and different supplies that had been carried from elsewhere on Mars and deposited by the traditional river that shaped this delta.

“The Delta High Marketing campaign is our alternative to get a glimpse on the geological course of past the partitions of Jezero Crater,” mentioned JPL’s Katie Stack Morgan, deputy venture scientist for Perseverance. “Billions of years in the past a raging river carried particles and boulders from miles past the partitions of Jezero. We’re going to discover these historical river deposits and acquire samples from their long-traveled boulders and rocks.”

Associated Hyperlinks

NASA-ESA Mars Sample Return Campaign
Perseverance Mars 2020

Mars News and Information at MarsDaily.com
Lunar Dreams and more

NASA awards contract for Mars Sample Return systems

Washington DC (SPX) Nov 26, 2022


NASA has awarded a contract to Honeybee Robotics LLC of Longmont, Colorado, for the Mars Pattern Return (MSR) – Seize, Containment, and Retrieval System (CCRS), Earth Entry System (EES), and Spin Eject Mechanism (SEM).

The entire worth of this cost-plus-fixed-fee contract is $17,686,341. The interval of efficiency runs from Nov. 30, 2022, by July 30, 2026.

Honeybee Robotics LLC will present the personnel, companies, supplies, gear, and amenities vital to construct the CCRS, EES, an … read more