WATCH: NASA’s Mars Perseverance Rover to Begin Building Martian Sample Depot

NASA & SPACE NEWS

ABOVE VIDEO: Mars Sample Return, bringing Mars Rock Samples Back to Earth

(NASA) – In the coming days, NASA’s Perseverance rover is expected to begin building the first sample depot on another world.

This will mark a crucial milestone in the NASA-ESA Mars Sample Return campaign, which aims to bring Mars samples to Earth for closer study.

The depot-building process starts when the rover drops one of its titanium sample tubes carrying a chalk-size core of rock from its belly 2.9 feet (88.8 centimeters) onto the ground at an area within Jezero Crater nicknamed “Three Forks.”

Over the course of 30 or so days, Perseverance will deposit a total of 10 tubes that carry samples representing the diversity of the rock record in Jezero Crater.

The rover has been taking a pair of samples from each of its rock targets. Half of every pair will be deposited at Three Forks as a backup set, and the other half will remain inside Perseverance, which will be the primary means to convey the collected samples to the Mars launch vehicle as part of the campaign.

“The samples for this depot – and the duplicates held aboard Perseverance – are an incredible set representative of the area explored during the prime mission,” said Meenakshi Wadhwa, the Mars Sample Return program principal scientist from Arizona State University.

“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.”

Perseverance’s prime mission will conclude on Jan. 6, 2023 – one Mars year (about 687 Earth days) after its Feb. 18, 2021, landing.

“We will still be working the sample depot deployment when our extended mission begins on Jan. 7, so nothing changes from that perspective,” said Art Thompson, Perseverance’s project manager at JPL.

“However, once the table is set at Three Forks, we’ll head to the top of the delta. The science team wants to take a good look around up there.”

Called the Delta Top Campaign, this new science phase will begin when Perseverance finishes its ascent of the delta’s steep embankment and arrives at the expanse that forms the upper surface of the Jezero delta, probably sometime in February.

During this approximately eight-month campaign, the science team will be on the lookout for boulders and other materials that were carried from elsewhere on Mars and deposited by the ancient river that formed this delta.

“The Delta Top Campaign is our opportunity to get a glimpse at the geological process beyond the walls of Jezero Crater,” said JPL’s Katie Stack Morgan, deputy project scientist for Perseverance.

“Billions of years ago a raging river carried debris and boulders from miles beyond the walls of Jezero. We are going to explore these ancient river deposits and obtain samples from their long-traveled boulders and rocks.”

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