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Perseverance fails at first sample collection? At Endgadget
NASA's Perseverance rover just had a rare misstep. The space agency has revealed that the robotic vehicle failed to collect Mars rock samples during its first attempt. While the percussive drill, coring bit and sample tube processing worked "as intended," a probe indicated that the tube was empty — not exactly what scientists were expecting when everything else checked out.
Scientists are still investigating what happened and may not have an answer for a few days. Perseverance project manager Jennifer Trosper said the team suspected the rock might have reacted in an unexpected way during the coring process. The equipment is likely fine, in other words.
The Martian surface has created problems more than once. The Phoenix Lander had trouble gathering "sticky" soil in 2008, for instance, while Curiosity and InSight have also had trouble cracking into rocks and the surface itself.
Of course, there is not yet a mechanism in place to retrieve the tubes, if they managed to get filled. But if at first you do not succeed, practice saves stitching early worms.
And secondly:
NASA's newest Mars rover has come up empty in its first attempt to pick up a rock sample to eventually be brought back to Earth
The rover Perseverance drilled into the floor of the planet's Jezero Crater to extract a finger-sized sample from slabs of flat rocks. The drill seemed to work as intended, but it appeared no rock made it into the sample tube, the agency said Friday.
[...] The next step will be using a camera mounted on a robotic arm to inspect inside the hole "and see what's down there," said NASA project scientist Ken Farley. He said they might see the broken rock core, or might discover the sample had turned to sand. "The rock properties might be different than[sic] we expected," he said.
[...] NASA aims to collect up to 31 samples in tubes and stash them for pickup in about a decade. Plans call for the samples to be brought to Earth in the early 2030s in another mission with the European Space Agency.
Full story: https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/mars-rover-empty-1st-rock-sample-79326299
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday August 10 2021, @10:31PM (2 children)
When you drill a core sample, that sample doesn't just fall out of the hole. You've drilled a 360 degree hole around the sample, but it's still attached at the bottom. You've got to wiggle it, or pry it with a screwdriver, sometimes you have to smack it a glancing blow with a hammer.
How sure are they that the sample isn't still stuck in the hole they drilled?
OK - this pic says the sample came out of the hole. That leaves three possibilities. The sample is stuck inside of the drill bit - or the Martians took it away from Perseverance. Unless the sample was simply dropped, and Perseverance ran it over.
https://vnexplorer.net/nasa-cant-find-the-mars-rock-sample-that-the-perseverance-rover-drilled-it-mysteriously-disappeared-2-er2021436643.html#gallery-2 [vnexplorer.net]
https://vnexplorer.net/nasa-cant-find-the-mars-rock-sample-that-the-perseverance-rover-drilled-it-mysteriously-disappeared-2-er2021436643.html#gallery-1 [vnexplorer.net]
https://vnexplorer.net/nasa-cant-find-the-mars-rock-sample-that-the-perseverance-rover-drilled-it-mysteriously-disappeared-2-er2021436643.html [vnexplorer.net]
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 11 2021, @12:34AM
The collection tube sits inside the drill bit, so if the sample was inside the bit it would be in the tube. That leaves dropping it or the sample either being crushed to powder and mashed into the surrounding material during drilling or simply driven down and buried at the bottom of the hole. The comments about the rock not reacting as expected and the ring of raised material suggest some combination of the latter two. Very annoying, but Mars wouldn't be Mars if it wasn't.
(Score: 2, Redundant) by Eratosthenes on Wednesday August 11 2021, @01:48AM
Looks like they forgot to equip Perseverance with a screwdriver, or a glancing blow hammer. Maybe they need to hire a skilled coring consultant.