There are currently a number of rovers, landers and orbiters exploring Mars, gathering more information than ever before about the planet’s environment and history. But to understand more about this place and especially if there was ever life there, we need to bring samples from Mars back to Earth to analyze them here. That’s what NASA aims to do over the next decade with its Mars sample return plan.
As part of this plan, the Perseverance rover is collecting rock and regolith samples as it explores Jezero Crater. These samples are then sealed in tubes that are deposited on the Martian surface, ready to be collected and returned to Earth by a future mission.
The location where NASA’s Perseverance will begin depositing its first cache of samples is shown in this image taken by the Mars rover on Dec. 14, 2022, the mission’s 646th Martian day, or sun. NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS
Perseverance will soon begin storing these tubes in a “sample repository,” which will eventually contain 10 tubes deposited over about a month. The location of the deposit had to be carefully chosen to be accessible for future missions, as the current plan is to retrieve the samples either by rover or helicopter.
Inspired by the success of the Mars Ingenuity helicopter, the idea is that multiple sample recovery helicopters could transport the samples between their current location and a recovery landing. But this requires the tank to be in a flat area without any hazards such as large rocks with plenty of safety for take offs and landings.
Individual tubes must also be carefully placed within the tank area. Since each helicopter can only take one tube at a time, the tubes cannot simply be left in a large pile. Instead, each tube must be placed in its own place several meters wide, spaced in a zig-zag pattern. The need for precise placement is why Perseverance will need about a month to place all the tubes.
The current selection of samples includes several types of rock from around Jezero, as well as samples of the dusty Martian soil called regolith. There is also a control tube called a blank tube, which does not contain any rock but contains a sample of the atmosphere to check for contaminants.
“The samples from this deposit, and the duplicates aboard Perseverance, are an incredible set representative of the area explored during the main mission,” said Meenakshi Wadhwa, principal scientist of the Mars Sample Return Program at the State University of Arizona, in a statement. “Not only do we 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.”
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