NASA’s Perseverance rover demonstrates excellent results during the exploration of the Red Planet. But the brave rover recently got into trouble while exploring the Jezero crater. The misfortune is reported by a post on the official channel of the rover on Twitter.
“Over the weekend, I collected my 14th rock core, but I was unable to seal the sample tube. The sample is stored safely inside my caching assembly, but some work remains to figure out how to cap and seal the tube,” Perseverance reports.
In general, this is a pretty small problem. NASA scientists are already trying to find a solution, but there is no nearest repair shop, so the rover has to deal with the problem with the tools available on board.
Over the weekend, I collected my 14th rock core, but I was unable to seal the sample tube. The sample is stored safely inside my caching assembly, but some work remains to figure out how to cap and seal the tube. #SamplingMars pic.twitter.com/CrcZLBO1Z6
— NASA’s Perseverance Mars Rover (@NASAPersevere) October 11, 2022
“Drilling rocks is quite difficult when your drill is 100 million kilometers away. Scientific and engineering groups are testing the solution so that we can complete the sealing process and call the sampling of the 14th sample successful,” NASA scientist and Perseverance team member Erin Gibbons wrote on Twitter.
Perseverance has been on the surface of Mars since 2021, constantly collecting rock samples from the surface of the planet and storing them in special containers. Later, NASA will send a special mission that will receive valuable samples and send them to Earth. It is planned that such a “rescue” Earth Return Orbiter mission will take place in 2033. When the samples arrive, Earth scientists will be able to explore them with more advanced tools and methods than those available to the rover.
Scientists hope that they will be able to uncover the secrets of the biological and geological history of the Red Planet once and for all.
Earlier we reported how the Perseverance rover samples contain mysterious objects.
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