Pasadena, CA – The tubes carried in the belly of NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover are destined to carry the first samples in history from another planet back to Earth.
Future scientists will use these carefully selected representatives of Martian rock and regolith (broken rock and dust) to look for evidence of potential microbial life present in Mars’ ancient past and to answer other key questions about Mars and its history. Perseverance will land at Mars’ Jezero Crater on February 18th, 2021.
A tray holding 39 sample tubes – each protected in a gold-colored sheath – is installed in NASA’s Perseverance rover in this picture taken at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center on May 21st, 2020. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/KSC)
A Martian Roundtrip: NASA s Perseverance Rover Sample Tubes
Perseverance s Sample Tubes Ready for Mars: One key activity for NASA s Perseverance Mars rover, which is on its way to the Red Planet, will be to collect samples of Martian rock and regolith (broken rock and dust) for future return to Earth. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech. Download video ›
Marvels of engineering, the rover s sample tubes must be tough enough to safely bring Red Planet samples on the long journey back to Earth in immaculate condition.
The tubes carried in the belly of NASA s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover are destined to carry the first samples in history from another planet back to Earth. Future scientists will use these carefully selected representatives of Martian rock and regolith (broken rock and dust) to look for evidence of potential microbial life present in Mars ancient past and to answer other key questions about Mars and its history. Perseverance will land at Mars Jezero Crater on Feb. 18, 2021.
NASA explains the secret weapon for its audacious Mars sample mission
Chris Davies - Dec 22, 2020, 1:12pm CST
NASA’s mission to take the Perseverance rover to Mars may be ambitious in its own right, but even that pales in comparison to the US space agency’s incredible plan to bring samples of Martian rock back to Earth. While Perseverance will join Curiosity, Sojourner, Spirit, and Opportunity as permanent residents of Mars, the samples the rover collects of soil and rock there are intending to make a return journey.
Of course, getting stuff from Earth to Mars – while challenging in itself – does at least have the collected expertise of NASA and its commercial partners to count upon. Bringing samples back in the opposite direction, though, is far trickier. While Curiosity and the other rovers have beamed images and scientific data back through their data connections with Earth, you can’t do that with physical soil samples.