A month in the past, Perseverance drilled into a lot softer rock, and the sample crumbled and didn’t get contained in the titanium tube.
NASA’s newest Mars rover has efficiently collected its first rock sample for return to Earth, after final month’s try got here up empty.
The Perseverance rover’s chief engineer, Adam Steltzner, known as it an ideal core sample.
“I’ve never been more happy to see a hole in a rock,” he tweeted on September 2.
A month in the past, Perseverance drilled into a lot softer rock, and the sample crumbled and didn’t get contained in the titanium tube. The rover drove a half-mile to a greater sampling spot to strive once more. Team members analysed knowledge and photos earlier than declaring success.
Perseverance arrived in February at Mars’ Jezero Crater — believed to be the house of a lush lake-bed and river delta billions of years in the past — searching for rocks which may maintain proof of historical life. NASA plans to launch extra spacecraft to retrieve the samples collected by Perseverance; engineers are hoping to return as many as three dozen samples in a couple of decade.
“Be patient, little sample, your journey is about to begin,” Mr. Steltzner mentioned.
