Mars rover Perseverance spots shiny silver litter on the Red Planet (photo) Perseverance rover collects Mars samples rich in 'organic matter' for future return to Earth Related: Mars sample return mission adds 2 helicopters, scraps 'fetch' rover Perseverance will therefore drop its tubes onto the red dirt at Three Forks in a zigzag pattern, with each one 16 feet to 49 feet (5 to 15 meters) away from its closest neighbor, NASA officials said. "The first one is for the Sample Retrieval Lander, but then we need 10 more in the vicinity for our Sample Recovery Helicopters to perform takeoffs and landings, and driving too," he added. "Up to now, Mars missions required just one good landing zone we need 11," Richard Cook, Mars Sample Return program manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California, said in Friday's update. The sample-retrieval helicopters will be capable of carrying just one tube at a time, so Perseverance's depot drop must be designed accordingly. Those future rotorcraft will ferry Perseverance's samples from the depot back to the lander if the rover isn't up to the job. The sample-return lander will carry two helicopters similar to Ingenuity, the little chopper that flew with Perseverance to Mars and is currently serving as a scout for the rover. So mission team members came up with a backup delivery plan, which is where the Three Forks depot comes in. Perseverance is in good health, but there are no guarantees that the six-wheeled robot will still be operational when the sample-return hardware makes it to the Red Planet. The lander, Mars rocket and ESA orbiter won't launch until the 2027-2028 timeframe, however. ![]() ![]() An ESA spacecraft will snag the sample container high above the Red Planet and haul it back to Earth. The baseline Mars sample-return plan calls for Perseverance to deliver its samples to a NASA lander with a built-in rocket, which will then launch the material to Mars orbit. The orange circles represent areas where a Sample Recovery Helicopter could safely operate to acquire the sample tubes. This map shows where NASA's Perseverance Mars rover will be dropping 10 samples that a future mission could pick up. Perseverance will retain one set on its body and drop the other set in depots, such as the one planned for Three Forks. The rover team is collecting two core samples from each target rock. This "atmospheric sample" is the result of Perseverance's first-ever sampling try, which failed due to the crumbliness of the target rock. On board, 15 tubes contain drilled-out cores from intriguing target rocks, two harbor regolith (dirt and gravel) and one is filled with Martian air. To date, Perseverance has collected 18 samples. In addition to its sample-collecting work, the rover is hunting for signs of ancient Mars life in Jezero's rocks. Jezero harbored a big lake and a river delta billions of years ago, which is the main reason the crater was the destination chosen for Perseverance's mission. ![]() (Witness tubes are designed to help mission team members determine which materials in the collected samples, if any, may be contaminants from Earth.) "We not only have igneous and sedimentary rocks that record at least two and possibly four or even more distinct styles of aqueous alteration, but also regolith, atmosphere and a witness tube," she added. The samples headed for the depot "are an incredible set representative of the area explored during the prime mission," Mars Sample Return program principal scientist Meenakshi Wadhwa, of Arizona State University, said in Friday's update.
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