Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Space
  3. News

Perseverance rover will soon begin collecting samples from Mars

By
NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover took a selfie with the Ingenuity helicopter, seen here about 13 feet (3.9 meters) from the rover. This image was taken by the WASTON camera on the rover’s robotic arm on April 6, 2021, the 46th Martian day, or sol, of the mission.
NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover took a selfie with the Ingenuity helicopter, seen here about 13 feet (3.9 meters) from the rover. This image was taken by the WASTON camera on the rover’s robotic arm on April 6, 2021, the 46th Martian day, or sol, of the mission.  NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

It’s been a busy week on Mars, with the arrival of China’s Zhurong rover and it sending its first images back to Earth. And elsewhere, in a different area of the planet, the helicopter Ingenuity is preparing for its sixth flight which aims to be further and faster than its previous trips. But don’t forget about NASA’s two rovers, Perseverance and Curiosity, which are also trundling along doing science work on the red planet.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory recently shared an update on what the rovers have been up to, including the plans for the next phase of the Perseverance mission.

Recommended Videos

With the helicopter Ingenuity off exploring on its own, the Perseverance rover has been freed up to perform observations of the martian rock. It recently used its robotic arm to get up close and personal with the Martian surface, and now it has moved onto the collection of samples. This is one of Perseverance’s major goals: To collect samples of Martian rocks and regolith, which will be picked up and returned to Earth in a future mission called Mars Sample Return. Getting these samples back to Earth is necessary so they can be analyzed in more detail than is possible using the limited instruments available on a rover.

Please enable Javascript to view this content

The rover is armed with a special system of tubes for the collection of samples, but this is the first time such a system has been used. So it needs to be tested before it can be used, and that’s what Perseverance is gearing up for.

Related

“In order to ensure that we are ready for this first one of a kind leg of collecting samples and preparing them to bring them back to earth we need to ensure that we can safely place and load the robotic arm on the surface of Mars,” explained Perseverance Surface Mission Manager Jessica Samuels. “So we first did this by loading the core drill and pushing against the Rover itself… The next day we successfully demonstrated the capability of placing the core on the surface of Mars.”

In addition, JPL shared that Perseverance has been traveling around the planet and has driven 345 meters so far. Samuels said there would be more traversing in the rover’s future: “Over the next couple of weeks we hope to continue to check out more of our autonomous navigation capabilities and are excited about the hundreds and hundreds of meters ahead.”

Editors’ Recommendations

Topics
Georgina Torbet
Georgina Torbet
Space Writer
Georgina has been the space writer at Digital Trends space writer for six years, covering human space exploration, planetary…
Check out this incredible panorama of Mars taken by Curiosity
NASA’s Curiosity captured this panorama using its Mastcam while heading west away from Gediz Vallis channel on Nov. 2, 2024, the 4,352nd Martian day, or sol, of the mission. The Mars rover’s tracks across the rocky terrain are visible at right.

The Curiosity rover has been on Mars since 2012, and in that time it has driven more than 20 miles -- which might not sound like a lot, but is a long distance for a rover traveling at slow, careful speeds that are somewhat less than the average garden snail. The rover has now reached the end of an area it has been exploring for the past year -- a channel called Gediz Vallis -- but before it moved on, the rover snapped a series of images of the area, which you can explore in this NASA panorama:

Key features are marked on the panorama, including the route along which the rover will exit the channel, as well as the tracks that lead back to show the direction the rover came in. In the far distance you can see the rim of the Gale Crater, which is the larger area that Curiosity is exploring, and the Pinnacle Ridge, which is formed from a mound of debris that scientists are still studying.

Read more
Watch NASA’s Mars video of a ‘googly eye’ during solar eclipse
The Perseverance Mars rover took this selfie on Sept. 10, 2021 — sol 198 of the mission – in Jezero Crater after coring into a rock called ‘Rochette.’ Rock core samples from the floor of the crater will be brought back to Earth and analyzed to characterize the planet’s geology and past climate.

As it continues its painstaking search for microbial life on Mars, NASA’s Perseverance rover has also been reporting otherworldly happenings occurring during its adventures.

Just recently, for example, one of its many onboard cameras captured some remarkable footage of a solar eclipse as Phobos -- one of Mars’ two moons -- passed between the red planet and the sun.

Read more
Follow Mars rover’s 18-mile trip in NASA’s animated route map
The route taken on Mars by NASA's Perseverance rover.

NASA has shared a fascinating animation showing the route taken by the Perseverance rover on Mars since its arrival there in February 2021.

Perseverance is NASA’s most advanced Mars rover to date, and while its general routes are decided by a team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, the rover actually moves forward autonomously, checking for hazards and moving around any problematic objects as it goes.

Read more