The backup sample storage for NASA's Perseverance Mars rover is now fully constructed, according to a report by NASA, less than six weeks after it began collecting samples.
Around 5 PM PST on January 24, confirmation that the 10th and last tube intended for the depot had been successfully dropped by NASA's Perseverance Mars rover was received.
The Mission Is Another Success For Perseverance
On Sunday, NASA posted on its Twitter account that the last tube has been deposited on the surface of the Red planet, as confirmed by officials at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California.
To ensure that the tubes might be safely recovered in the future by the NASA-ESA (European Space Agency) Mars Sample Return effort.
This seeks to transfer samples from Mars to Earth for closer examination, precise planning and navigation were required for this significant milestone.
Perseverance touched down in February 2021 on the bottom of the 45-kilometer-wide (28-mile-wide) Jezero Crater, which once housed a large lake and a river delta.
The six-wheeled robot is gathering numerous samples while looking for evidence of ancient Mars life, Space writes.
If everything goes as planned, it might be brought back to Earth by a combined NASA-ESA mission as early as 2033.
The rover has consistently collected two samples from rocks that the mission team considers to be important for science.
As part of the campaign, the depot samples will act as a backup set while the other half stay inside Perseverance, which will be the main vehicle used to deliver samples to a Sample Retrieval Lander.
The igneous and sedimentary rock cores, in the opinion of mission scientists, offer a superb cross section of the geologic events that occurred in Jezero soon after the crater's formation roughly 4 billion years ago.
Additionally, the rover left behind an atmosphere sample and a device known as a "witness" tube, which is intended to check whether samples are potentially contaminated by substances that traveled with the rover from Earth.
Read More: NASA's Perseverance Rover Finds Volcanic Rocks in What Used to be a Martian Lake
What Is Next For Perseverance
Perseverance will move up the old delta after finishing its depot work while looking at the amazing rocks along the way, Space details.
The rover will be in a position to start a new phase of its science mission called the Delta Top Campaign once it passes an outcrop the team refers to as Rocky Top.
Due to the geologic shift that occurs at that level, passing the Rocky Top outcrop signifies the end of the rover's Delta Front Campaign and the start of its Delta Top Campaign.
"We found that from the base of the delta up to the level where Rocky Top is located, the rocks appear to have been deposited in a lake environment," Perseverance Project Scientist Ken Farley says.
The "Curvilinear Unit" is the name of one of the first locations the rover will visit during the upcoming science mission, NASA notes.
The structure, which resembles a Martian sandbar, is composed of sediment that was accumulated in a bend in one of Jezero's flowing river channels millions of years ago.
The team thinks the Curvilinear Unit will be a great place to look for interesting sandstone and possibly mudstone outcrops and to obtain a peek of the geological processes occurring outside of Jezero Crater.
Related Article: NASA's Persevarance Turns One for Its Martian Birthday
