The Perseverance wanderers sampling system is a step closer to trapping precious Mars rocks for later analysis.
Perseverance, what landed inside Mars’ Jezero crater on February 18, last week successfully dropped the ‘belly pan’ that covers its sampling system.
“Look first before I release the ‘ejectionable belly pan’,” mission team members said Friday (March 12). via Perseverance’s official Twitter account. After the team confirmed that Percy had dropped the belly pan as planned, they posted images and a new tweet on Saturday (March 13) showing how the cover sits securely on the Mars surface.
“Next is to check my sampling system when the cover panel is off,” the tweet from saturday added.
Related: NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover mission in pictures
The abdominal pan is a protective cover that sits over the sampling system. A short Twitter video from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory show the implementation order, which is fairly simple; the pan falls directly from the Rover and exposes the sampling system under Perseverance.
The car-sized car will store monsters in its belly as it explores the Red Planet and searches for signs of ancient life in its landing area of the Jezero crater and beyond.
“The abdomen of the rover contains all the necessary equipment and supplies to collect samples. It contains a rotating drill carousel, a wheel that contains different types of drill bits. Then there are the 43 sample tubes waiting to be filled,” NASA -officials written in an explanatory about the sampling system.
“While the large arm of the rover protrudes and drills stones, there is a small robotic arm in the abdomen that acts as a ‘laboratory assistant’ for the large arm,” NASA officials added. “The small arm picks up and moves new sample tubes to the drill and carries filled sample containers to a space where they are sealed and stored.”
The samples will eventually be stored at one or more “depots” on the Mars surface, which will be well marked using local landmarks (such as rocks) and coordinates from an orbit.
A future monster-back campaign will land near the depot (s), collect the monsters and launch them to the Mars orbit to return to Earth. The return campaign has not been fully approved or funded yet, both NASA and the European Space Agency are planning for a possible removal later this decade. The monsters could bring it to Earth as early as 2031, NASA officials said.
By bringing pristine pieces of the Red Planet to Earth, scientists can search Mars life using advanced, non-portable laboratory instruments, assuming that the mission meets all the requirements for the protection of samples and to keep the earth free from contaminants as well.
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