NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover is making final preparations to collect its first-ever Martian rock sample, which will be transported back to Earth on future planned missions. It’s currently searching for a scientifically interesting target in a part of Jezero Crater called the “Cratered Floor Fractured Rough,” and the mission is expected to begin within the next two weeks.
Perseverance’s sampling sequence starts with it placing everything necessary for sampling within reach of its 7-foot-long robotic arm before it performs an imagery survey, thus enabling NASA’s science team can determine the exact location for taking the first sample and a separate target site in the same area for proximity science. The SuperCam will then fire its laser at the abraded surface, spectroscopically measuring the resulting plume and collecting other data, while Mastcam-Z captures high-resolution imagery.
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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. 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,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for science at NASA Headquarters.
