Nasa Perseverance Mars rover to acquire first sample of Martian rock
NASA is making final preparations for its Perseverance
Mars rover to collect its first-ever sample of Martian rock, which future
planned missions will transport to Earth. The six-wheeled geologist is
searching for a scientifically interesting target in a part of Jezero Crater
called the "Cratered Floor Fractured Rough."
This important mission milestone is expected to begin within the
next two weeks. Perseverance landed in Jezero Crater on February 18, and NASA kicked off the
rover mission's science phase on June 1, exploring a 1.5-square-mile
(4-square-kilometer) patch of crater floor that may contain Jezero's deepest
and most ancient layers of exposed bedrock.
"When Neil Armstrong took the first sample from the Sea of
Tranquility 52 years ago, he began a process that would rewrite what humanity
knew about the Moon," said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for
science at NASA Headquarters.
"I have every expectation that Perseverance's first sample from Jezero
Crater, and those that come after, will do the same for Mars. We are on the
threshold of a new era of planetary science and discovery."
It took Armstrong 3 minutes and 35 seconds to collect that first
Moon sample. Perseverance will require about 11 days to complete its first
sampling, as it must receive its instructions from hundreds of millions of
miles away while relying on the most complex and capable, as well as the
cleanest, mechanism ever to be sent into space - the Sampling and Caching
System.
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