This week, NASA's Perseverance rover collected its ninth sample from the Jezero crater delta, which is located in the vicinity of Mars. One of the most promising places to look for evidence of ancient life is the Delta, and the samples collected from this region are prime targets for future sample return missions.
The NASA Perseverance team announced the successful collection of the sample on social media.
Rock sample #9 is in the bag! (Well, in the tube, anyway.)
My team has waited years to get up close to this river delta and see what it might say about past life on Mars. This sample may well get a one-way ticket back to Earth in the future! #SamplingMars pic.twitter.com/GCQ51UzUtg
— NASA's Perseverance Mars Rover (@NASAPersevere) July 7, 2022
The Delta Front Campaign began in April with the arrival of the rover at the delta. Millions of years ago, the area was the site of an ancient river Delta. There are layers of rocks that Perseverance is looking for evidence of.
When water flowed across the surface of Mars and a river was drained into the ancient crater below, the soils were deposited. Remnants of life could be found in some of the ancient rocks.
There are instruments on the Perseverance rover that can analyze the composition of rocks. Its mission includes collecting data in situ. The rover needs to collect samples and seal them inside tubes on the surface of Mars in order to return them to Earth. Future missions will pick up these samples, take them to an ascent vehicle, and send them back to Earth to be studied. This is the next step in the exploration of Mars.
NASA has been working on plans for a sample return mission for a long time and has recently been refining the details of what a mission would look like and testing out hardware that it could use. China plans to launch an ambitious mission to bring back Mars samples by 2031, two years before NASA's target date, and other space agencies are also interested in such a mission.
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