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The Perseverance rover is a rarity among space rovers for the sole reason that it is a sample return mission – meaning Perseverance will pierce Martian rock and collect samples that will ultimately be sent back to Earth.
Of course, the sample return part of the mission becomes difficult if his sample suddenly and mysteriously disappears.
This mysterious Martian story begins last week, when scientists took a big step forward in the historic Perseverance mission by attempting to collect samples from the Red Planet and drop them into one of the rover’s 43 collection tubes.
At first, everything seemed to be working well. Perseverance selected a boulder in Jezero Crater, a 45 km-wide impact crater and ancient lake that scientists say is a great place to look for evidence of ancient microbial life on Mars. The rover then drilled a small hole the size of a finger.
But despite the obvious hole in the rock, subsequent analysis revealed that there was no rock sample to be found in the tube.
“While this is not the ‘hole in one’ we were hoping for, there is always a risk to innovate,” Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Missions Directorate in Washington, said in a statement. Press. “I have no doubts that we have the right team working on this, and we will push for a solution to ensure future success.”
Sample return missions are extremely rare due to their cost. In fact, there has never been a sample return mission from another planet. Perseverance will be the first, and NASA scientists say if all goes according to plan, we may have samples from Mars on Earth by 2031.
So what happened to the missing sample? Engineers are still looking for an answer, but they have some clues.
Perseverance has a hollow coring bit and an impact drill at the end of its seven-foot-long robotic arm, intended for extracting samples. According to NASA, data from the operation suggests the sample was processed as intended, making the missing sample even more puzzling.
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“The sampling process is self-sustaining from start to finish,” said Jessica Samuels, surface mission manager for Perseverance at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “One of the steps that occurs after placing a probe in the collection tube is to measure the volume of the sample. The probe did not meet the expected resistance that would be there if a sample were inside it. of the tube. “
In response, the Perseverance mission brings together an intervention team to analyze the data in more detail. Part of this process will be using the WATSON (Wide Angle Topographic Sensor for Operations and Engineering) imager, located at the end of the robotic arm, to better understand what happened.
“The initial idea is that the empty tube is more likely the result of the rock target not reacting as we expected during coring, and less likely a hardware problem with the sampling and setting system. cache, “said Jennifer Trosper, project manager for Perseverance at JPL. “Over the next few days, the team will be spending more time analyzing the data we have and acquiring additional diagnostic data to help understand the root cause of the empty tube.”
Apparently, this isn’t the first time scientists have struggled to drill holes and collect samples on Mars. In 2008, the “sticky” and “icy” ground on Mars made it difficult for the Phoenix mission to move a sample to one of its on-board science instruments. More recently, the InSight lander’s thermal probe struggled to penetrate the surface of Mars as expected.
“I’ve been on all of the Martian rover’s missions from the start, and this planet is still teaching us what we don’t know about it,” Trosper said. “One thing I have found is that it is not uncommon to have complications with complex activities for the first time.”
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