Perseverance rover dropped the titanium sample tube on the ground on December 21, 2022, according to an announcement from NASA. The tube is the first of a total of 10 that will be piled up in that spot, rounding out the initial step of the Mars Sample Return mission. NASA says the rover will collect the samples and deposit the tubes over the next couple of months, achieving a first for humanity: a deliberate “sample depot” full of material on a planet other than Earth.
If this news sounds familiar, that’s because it is, sort of. Perseverance has already collected 17 samples from Mars, but they’re all stored within the rover itself, according to NASA. The pile of sample tubes Perseverance is creating is considered a backup that’ll be collected if, for whatever reason, the rover isn’t able to hand over the samples it is storing to a lander that will arrive on Mars in the future.
NASA plans to use helicopters to pick up the backup sample tubes and take them to the lander, assuming that ends up being necessary. As outlandish as that may sound, it’s also totally possible: the space agency has reported great success with its Ingenuity helicopter, having said in the past that it exceeded expectations. This is all leading up to what may be the most fascinating space mission thus far. The aforementioned lander will pack the samples into a capsule on a rocket, which will then launch into orbit around Mars. A different spacecraft will snatch the capsule from that rocket and then bring it safely back to Earth with all of the Mars samples — assuming nothing goes awry, of course.
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