NASA's Perseverance rover deposits first sample on Mars surface

The Perseverance Mars rover placed a titanium tube containing a rock sample on the Red Planet. The first sample depot on another planet is going to be built over the next two months by the rover. The depot is the first step in the Mars sample return campaign.

duplicate samples from rock targets have been taken byPerseverance. The rover has 17 samples in it's belly. The architecture of the Mars Sample Return campaign would allow the rover to deliver samples.

The lander would use a robotic arm to place the samples in a containment capsule aboard a small rocket that would blast off to Mars, where the sample container would be captured and returned to Earth.

If Perseverance isn't able to deliver its samples, the depot will be a backup. Sample Recovery Helicopters would be used to finish the job.

The first sample to be dropped was a chalk-size core of igneous rock informally named "Malay." Perseverance's Sampling and Caching System took almost an hour to retrieve the metal tube from inside the rover's belly, view it one final time with its internal cache cam, and then drop the sample onto a carefully selected patch of Martian surface.

Engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California built Perseverance and lead the mission. The team positioned the WATSON camera at the end of Perseverance's robotic arm to peer beneath the rover to make sure the tube hadn't rolled into it.

They wanted to make it easier for future missions to pick up the tube by making it easier to stand on its end. Perseverance's Earthly twin was tested in JPL's Mars Yard. If it happens on Mars, the mission has written a series of commands for Perseverance to knock the tube over with part of the turret at the end of its robotic arm.

They will have other opportunities in the coming weeks to see if Perseverance needs to use the technique.

Perseverance's deputy project manager at JPL said that seeing the first sample on the ground was a great finish to the mission. We're closing the first chapter of the mission just as we're starting our cache.