NASA Has a Plan to Dislodge the Pebbles Stuck in Perseverance Rover

NASA engineers have executed a plan to clear the Perseverance rover of some particles that has prevented it from correctly caching rock samples. The crew expects to learn the way the clean-up mission went later right now.

The difficulty arose on December 29, when a rock pattern from Mars (taken from a rock named Issole) couldn’t be correctly moved from the coring bit that drilled into the rock to the long-term pattern storage on the rover. The storage is a bit like a lazy Susan; it’s a carousel of samples that rotates each time a pattern tube is stuffed.

The rover despatched knowledge to Earth indicating there was extra resistance within the pattern’s transition than anticipated, and when the NASA crew acquired photos of the difficulty, they realized that bits of the rock pattern had fallen out of the tube and onto the bit carousel. (The rover is able to functioning regardless of these jam-ups, however because the machine continues to be comparatively new on Mars, NASA needs to deal with the equipment as properly as they will.) So a plan was drafted to get the little Martian pebbles out of Perseverance’s guts.

The crew is rotating the bit carousel to shake the pebbles unfastened. They’re taking knowledge and imagery of Perseverance’s actions as they occur, to trace whether or not particles has truly moved. Last week, the crew analyzed and imaged the rocky ground beneath the rover, so if the rover’s subsequent photos present extra materials on the bottom, the crew will know the carousel-rotation method was a hit. NASA expects these knowledge and pictures right now.

“If I had to ballpark it, I would estimate we’ll be at our current location another week or so – or even more if we decide to re-sample Issole,” wrote Jennifer Trosper, a challenge supervisor at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in a NASA blog post. Trosper famous that the rock was of scientific curiosity, so it’s seemingly that Perseverance might give Issole one other go.

This pebble drawback was not the primary blip in Perseverance’s sampling schedule. The rover’s first sampling try got here up empty, so NASA needed to attempt some different strategies to truly start the rock assortment. The rover has 43 pattern tubes, seven of which have thus far been filed. Around the tip of the last decade, these tubes could also be heading to Earth, within the terribly formidable Mars Sample Return mission.

More: Your Guide to NASA’s Life-Hunting Mars Rover, Perseverance