This story is a part of Welcome to Mars, our sequence exploring the crimson planet.
Rock amassing is among the NASA Perseverance rover’s most essential duties on Mars. It is drilling out pencil-wide samples of valuable Martian rocks that NASA is planning to choose up with a future mission to allow them to be studied again on Earth. However Percy encountered an anomaly in October when making an attempt to seal up the tube holding its 14th rock pattern. NASA is making an attempt to repair it.
On Thursday, NASA supplied an replace on the rover’s efforts to get the seal capped onto the pattern, which is nicknamed “Mageik.” It is a multi-step course of that takes place contained in the rover’s Sampling and Caching System. Mentioned NASA, “When the pattern dealing with system tried to dispense a seal within the tube of the Mageik pattern, the seal encountered an excessive amount of resistance and didn’t come free.”
The No. 14 rock pattern hasn’t been sealed into its tube but on board the Perseverance rover.
NASA/JPL-Caltech
The rover detected the issue and stashed the tube for safekeeping whereas Percy’s group went to work on determining what went unsuitable. One potential perpetrator is that Mars’ pesky mud is getting in the way in which of a clear seal. Imaging contained in the caching system urged there was some mud on the lip of the tube.
The system has a built-in sweeping device designed to scrub across the tube’s opening, so the rover group put that to make use of. After 19 sweeping operations and a complete of three tries at sealing the bathtub, the seal remains to be stubbornly staying in its dispenser. Which means the troubleshooting work will proceed.
The rover group has needed to work by means of another oddball challenges since Perseverance arrived on Mars in early 2021. Some pebbles obtained in the way in which of sampling actions earlier this yr. In August, a rock core pattern mysteriously went lacking.
Percy is at present exploring an interesting space of the Jezero Crater that was as soon as an historic river delta. The finds right here have been pleasant. The rover’s on-board lab work discovered indicators of natural molecules in an earlier rock pattern. That does not show the existence of long-ago microbial life, but it surely does make scientists pumped to get these rocks again to Earth for extra definitive solutions.
NASA mentioned it is going to evaluate the info on the anomaly after which work out the best way to proceed. Regardless of the occasional snafu, Percy continues to roll and do its science work, undaunted by the uncooperative tube seal.
Watch this:
Mars Sample Return Mission Will Bring Rocks and Air to…
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