![]() Once the team has a better understanding of what happened, it will be able to ascertain when to schedule the next sample collection attempt. One early step will be to use the WATSON (Wide Angle Topographic Sensor for Operations and eNgineering) imager – located at the end of the robotic arm – to take close-up pictures of the borehole. The Perseverance mission is assembling a response team to analyze the data. The probe did not encounter the expected resistance that would be there if a sample were inside the tube.” “One of the steps that occurs after placing a probe into the collection tube is to measure the volume of the sample. ![]() “The sampling process is autonomous from beginning to end,” said Jessica Samuels, the surface mission manager for Perseverance at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. Telemetry from the rover indicates that during its first coring attempt, the drill and bit were engaged as planned, and post-coring, the sample tube was processed as intended. Perseverance’s Sampling and Caching System uses a hollow coring bit and a percussive drill at the end of its 7-foot-long (2-meter-long) robotic arm to extract samples. “I’m confident we have the right team working this, and we will persevere toward a solution to ensure future success.” “While this is not the ‘hole-in-one’ we hoped for, there is always risk with breaking new ground,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The rover carries 43 titanium sample tubes and is exploring Jezero Crater, where it will be gathering samples of rock and regolith (broken rock and dust) for future analysis on Earth. In other words, a significant amount of planning and money is riding on Perseverance's ability to drill successfully.Data sent to Earth by NASA’s Perseverance rover after its first attempt to collect a rock sample on Mars and seal it in a sample tube indicate that no rock was collected during the initial sampling activity. Then scientists can investigate whether microbial life may have lived in the lake that once filled the basin. NASA plans to send another mission to Mars in about a decade to retrieve the samples and bring them back to Earth. Perseverance's main goal on Mars is to explore a region called Jezero Crater and gather rock samples the tube that came up empty is one of 43 the rover is carrying for this purpose. "Over the next few days, the team will be spending more time analyzing the data we have, and also acquiring some additional diagnostic data to support understanding the root cause for the empty tube." ![]() "The initial thinking is that the empty tube is more likely a result of the rock target not reacting the way we expected during coring, and less likely a hardware issue with the Sampling and Caching System," Jennifer Trosper, the project manager for Perseverance, said in a statement. Mission controllers will then try to plan another sampling attempt. To figure out what happened, NASA is instructing Perseverance to take close-up pictures of the borehole. The hole Perseverance drilled into a Mars rock, photographed Saturday, while trying to take its first sample. Account icon An icon in the shape of a person's head and shoulders.
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