With this latest sample stored safely in a sample tube in the rover’s belly, the six-wheeler will continue to climb Jezero’s sedimentary fan toward the next bend in the dry riverbed, a location the science team is calling “Castell Henllys.”

More About the Mission

A key objective for Perseverance’s mission on Mars is astrobiology, including caching samples that may contain signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will characterize the planet’s geology and past climate, pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet, and be the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith.

Subsequent NASA missions, in cooperation with ESA, would send spacecraft to Mars to collect these sealed samples from the surface and return them to Earth for in-depth analysis.

The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission is part of NASA’s Moon to Mars exploration approach, which includes Artemis missions to the Moon that will help prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet.

JPL, which is managed for NASA by Caltech, built and manages operations of the Perseverance rover.

Quelle: NASA

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Update: 4.04.2023

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First Mars Sample Depot shaped by Rover, Lander, and Helicopter

This map shows where NASA's Perseverance Mars rover will be dropping 10 samples that a future mission could pick up. The orange circles represent areas where a Sample Recovery Helicopter could safely operate to acquire the sample tubes. Figure A is the same map with a legend. A key objective for Perseverance's mission on Mars is astrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will characterize the planet's geology and past climate, pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet, and be the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith. Future missions will send spacecraft to Mars to collect these sealed samples from the surface and return them to Earth.

NASA's Perseverance rover is now exploring the upper surface of the Western Fan in Jezero crater, having completed a very successful one Mars year Prime Mission. It has sealed 22 of the 43 sample tubes it brought to Mars and created the Three Forks Sample Depot where it deposited 10 of these samples.

The Mars Sample Return mission aims to bring some of the samples that Perseverance collects from Mars to Earth via tube transfer to a Sample Retreival Lander, via either:

+ Perseverance Passes the Baton: In the primary plan, the Mars Sample Return Sample Retrieval Lander (SRL) will land close to Perseverance, which would then drive up to it. The lander's robotic arm would then transfer one tube at a time from Perseverance's bit carousel into the Mars Ascent Vehicle on the lander-a rocket that would launch the samples into martian orbit for rendezvous and capture by an Earth Return Orbiter (ERO).

As a backup plan, SRL would carry two Sample Recovery Helicopters (SRHs) to Mars.

+ Sample Recovery Helicopters Fly, Drive, Grab, and Drop: To hedge against anything unexpected preventing Perseverance from delivering samples to SRL, the rover collected twin samples at the first seven sampling locations so that one of each pair could be deposited at the Three Forks depot. Perseverance could also deposit a second depot in the future with more than 10 tubes for collection. The Sample Recovery Helicopters could fly to a sample depot, collect one sample at a time, fly back to the lander and drop it for the lander robotic arm to pick up from the surface.

So why did we create the Three Forks depot in that shape?
Recovery helicopter access was the biggest factor. Around the drop zone, a 5.5 meter (18 feet) radius circle had to be free of hazards for the SRH. The drop had to be within 70-95 centimeters (27.6-37.4 inches) of the center of this circle to allow it to encompass a donut-shaped landing zone and a central drive, grab, and go zone.

SRH is expected to weigh just 2.3 kilograms (5.1 pounds) including small wheels and a gripper for which rocks ~2 centimeters (0.8 inches) in diameter could be a potential hazard. The entire depot also needed to be within 200-700 meters (656.2-2296.6 feet) flight distance from a location for SRL landing.

+ No communication obstructions such as the rover body or terrain could block Perseverance's High Gain Antenna during the depot construction, since that is how the rover receives instructions. This had to be factored in for the approach and parking heading for each drop zone.

+ View of the next drop zone had to be unobstructed by the rover body to take high resolution images for checking recovery helicopter hazards.

+ Rover return access had to be maintained to allow driving through the Sample Depot after drops in case we needed to re-image or use the lower drill stabilizer tip to topple a tube that might have landed standing straight up. The SRH gripper arm is designed to pick up a tube lying horizontally on the ground.

While creating the depot, Perseverance alternated between two types of activities:
1/ Drop and image used choreographed moves between the Perseverance external robotic arm and the Adaptive Caching Assembly (ACA) inside the rover, which has a second robotic arm - the Sample Handling Arm - to image the sample before and after depositing it on the ground.

2/ Drive and photoshoot involved backing up and taking mid-drive images of the dropped sample - a 7inch (18.6cm) tube and glove combination, which is called an RGA (Returnable Sample Tube Assembly and attached Glove Assembly). Each drive concluded with a precision approach to place the ACA over the next drop zone.

The drive distances between drop zones ranged from ~8-22 meters (26.2-72.2 feet). If the RGA was dropped too close to a wheel (as found in some Earth testing), a RGA Avoidance Maneuver (RAM) was to be executed with the rover driving backwards to avoid rolling over the RGA. As it happened, the tubes on Mars all dropped nominally and Rover Planners didn't have to say "RPs are GO for RAM" and "RPs will commence RAMing."

During the 42 martian days (sols) that it took to to create and document the Three Forks depot, the rover drove 207.93 meters (682.2 feet), dropped 10 sample RGAs, and took 4000 images. The team gathered together in mission control toward the end of sample depot creation, and it was wonderful to take the time to appreciate the quiet geniuses in various areas who made it all seem so simple.

As we walked out of the room, the next uplink commanding the rover was already in progress as Perseverance moved on at a fast clip. It is now collecting single samples (instead of pairs) from each rock target to add to its collection before its rendezvous with the Mars Sample Return spacecraft to see samples launch from Mars for return to Earth.

Quelle: SD

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Update: 5.04.2023

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Mars rocks await a ride to Earth — can NASA deliver?

The stakes are high as the agency contemplates the technological and financial hurdles ahead for its sample-return mission.

For decades, scientists who study Mars have watched in envy as spacecraft brought pieces of the Moon, chunks of asteroids and even samples of the solar wind to Earth to be studied. Now some of those researchers might finally be on track to receive rocks from the red planet — but only if NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) can pull off a complex and daring mission.

For several years, the two agencies have been planning to send spacecraft to Mars, starting no earlier than 2027, to pick up rock samples that are being collected by NASA’s Perseverance rover. But technological and financial hurdles could derail the multi-billion-dollar scheme. Last month, NASA said it wants to allocate nearly US$1 billion to Mars sample return in the upcoming fiscal year — a huge sum that could force the agency to dip into other parts of its science budget. This would affect other projects, potentially delaying a planned heliophysics mission, for example. And much is at stake for the Mars sample return: Perseverance has gathered a scientifically stunning set of rocks. In December and January, the rover deposited ten cigar-sized tubes filled with rock, soil and air from the Martian atmosphere on a flat area of the planet’s surface for a future mission to pick up (see ‘Sample depot’).

In the coming months, NASA and ESA will have to make crucial decisions about what exactly the mission will look like and how much they think they can spend on it. “We’ve had a lot of questions about containing the cost for Mars sample return,” said Nicola Fox, head of science for NASA, at a 23 March town hall meeting about the agency’s budget. “We are doing a very, very deep dive into [it].”

A complex mission

NASA and ESA have agreed on the basic outline of a Mars sample-return mission. No earlier than 2027, ESA plans to launch a spacecraft that would fly to Mars and orbit the planet. The next year, NASA would send another spacecraft to land on the planet’s surface — in or near Jezero Crater, where Perseverance is exploring — and put the rock samples into a container. A rocket carrying the container would then depart from the Martian surface and travel into orbit to meet the ESA spacecraft, which would capture it and fly it to Earth, landing in the Utah desert no earlier than 2033.

That is a lot of steps that would have to be successful for the whole thing to work. “The mission remains complex,” said Jeff Gramling, director of Mars sample return at NASA headquarters in Washington DC, at the town hall meeting.

Among the new inventions needed for Mars sample return are the rocket that would be launched from the Martian surface and miniature helicopters with wheels and claw-like grippers. If Perseverance cannot, for some reason, hand samples stored in its belly to NASA’s future lander, the helicopters would be released from the lander and would grab the samples laid down earlier on the ground. They will be modelled on the helicopter Ingenuity, which accompanied Perseverance to Jezero Crater and has so far made 48 flights.

But one of the two planned helicopters might have to be dropped from the project to save money, NASA revealed in a budget proposal released on 13 March. The proposal also suggested delaying a space-weather mission, the Geospace Dynamics Constellation, to free up funds for Mars sample return. “The problem is, it’s unclear how much [cost] growth there will be, and how it will affect not just planetary projects, but projects across NASA,” says Louise Prockter, a planetary scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland. Another cloud looming over the plan is that much of NASA’s contribution to Mars sample return is being run by its Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, where management problems delayed the launch of the Psyche asteroid mission — originally planned for last year and now rescheduled for October 2023 — and have put a Venus mission on pause indefinitely.

In the next few months, NASA and ESA will be finalizing the design of all of the Mars sample-return components and determining the first comprehensive cost estimate for the mission. At that point, the agencies will bring in an independent review board, which is currently being assembled, to assess the design, schedule and required funding. All of this comes on top of other Mars commitments: NASA has expanded its support for ESA’s planned Rosalind Franklin Mars rover, which was derailed when Russia — an intended collaborator — invaded Ukraine. And NASA has introduced a new set of robotic Mars missions of its own.

High-value rocks

Nonetheless, NASA and ESA are forging ahead. They are setting up procedures for how Mars samples would be handled once back on Earth, including new planetary-protection protocols for sterilizing the dusty exterior of the orbiting sample container. And the agencies are putting together a group of researchers to define what kinds of scientific measurement need to be made on the samples once they are in Earthly laboratories.

All of which is crucial because of the high value of the samples Perseverance gathered. The rover landed in Jezero in February 2021 and has driven nearly 17 kilometres around the crater since then, collecting different types of rock that could shed light on Martian history. This includes picking up samples that might contain evidence of past life on Mars — the search for which is the mission’s key goal.

The ten tubes that have been deposited would represent a bonanza for Martian science. Some contain igneous rocks, which solidify directly from molten rock and would allow scientists to determine the age of parts of the Martian surface for the first time. And two samples, collected at sites known as Hogwallow Flats and Yori Pass, contain rocks that formed from fine-grained sediments that interacted with water over time — an ideal environment in which life can thrive. (Jezero Crater once held a lake fed by a river that left behind an ancient river delta.)

At the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in The Woodlands, Texas, last month, Adrian Broz at the University of Oregon in Eugene described how water percolating through the rocks of Hogwallow Flats probably altered their appearance and chemistry. And Kathy Benison at West Virginia University in Morgantown spoke about sulfate minerals detected in the rocks by Perseverance, saying that there is a good chance of these preserving biosignatures of ancient organisms, if such organisms ever existed.

In the meantime, Perseverance trundles on. In recent weeks it has climbed atop the ancient river delta in Jezero Crater and is working its way through spectacular outcrops of river deposits, gathering more samples as it goes. On 30 March it collected its nineteenth sample, from a rock on the delta that is rich in carbonate — another mineral that is excellent at preserving signs of past life.

Quelle: nature

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Update: 6.04.2023

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Mars helicopter Ingenuity goes faster and higher than ever before on 49th Red Planet flight

The little chopper set multiple records on its April 2 sortie.

NASA's Ingenuity Mars helicopter captured this image of its own shadow during its 49th Red Planet flight, which occurred on April 2, 2023. Ingenuity flew faster and higher than ever before on the sortie. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

NASA's Ingenuity helicopter has been flying on Mars for nearly two years now, and it's still breaking records.

Ingenuity flew faster and higher than it ever had before on its most recent Red Planet sortie, which occurred on Sunday (April 2). 

The 4-pound (1.8 kilograms) chopper reached a top speed of 14.5 mph (23.3 kph) and a maximum altitude of 52.5 feet (16 meters) on Sunday, according to the mission's flight log(opens in new tab). The previous records were 13.4 mph (21.6 kph) and 46 feet (14 m), respectively.

Ingenuity landed with NASA's Perseverance rover on the floor of Mars' Jezero Crater in February 2021. On April 19 of that year, Ingenuity took to the Red Planet skies for the first time, executing a 39-second hover that covered no horizontal distance.

The little chopper conducted four more flights over the following few weeks, acing its technology-demonstrating primary mission, which aimed to show that powered aerial exploration is possible on Mars despite the thinness of the planet's atmosphere. 

And then Ingenuity just kept on flying, on an extended mission during which it's serving as a scout for the life-hunting, sample-collecting Perseverance. Sunday's sortie was the 49th for Ingenuity, and flight 50 is likely just around the corner.

Over the course of its 49 Mars flights to date, Ingenuity has stayed aloft for a total of 86.7 minutes and covered 6.974 miles (11.224 km) of Red Planet ground, according to the flight log. Perseverance's odometer, meanwhile, currently reads 10.67 miles(opens in new tab) (17.17 km).

The 28-mile-wide (45 km) Jezero hosted a lake and a river delta in the ancient past, which is the main reason that NASA picked the crater for Perseverance's mission.

The rover is collecting dozens of samples that will be returned to Earth by a joint NASA-European Space Agency campaign, perhaps as early as 2033.

Quelle: SD

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Mars Ingenuity helicopter breaks record for speed and altitude, NASA says

After more than two years on the red planet, the Mars helicopter Ingenuity has broken two new records, NASA said.

The helicopter on Sunday flew 14.5 miles per hour, beating its previous record of 13.4 miles per hour, and hit an altitude of 52.5 feet, outperforming its previous top height of 46 feet. The data from Ingenuity, which has flown 49 flights and been on Mars since February 2021, was shared online by NASA in a flight log.

Ingenuity was brought to Mars by NASA's Perseverance rover. In the past two years, the helicopter has performed a series of tests and is currently conducting an operations demonstration phase that NASA says "looks to explore how future rovers and aerial explorers can work together." 

Ingenuity has set records in the past: In April 2021, it became the first powered, controlled flight in Mars' extremely thin atmosphere, NASA said. In a video released Tuesday, Ingenuity Team Lead Teddy Tzanetos spoke from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and said that the records that Ingenuity had set were allowing developers to advance future helicopter design. 

"These sorts of wins are coming from the surface of Mars directly into the design of the new sample recovery helicopters, and she's done a fantastic job and surpassed any sort of metric of success that anyone on the team could have ever imagined for this little tiny four-pound spacecraft," he said. 

Those sample recovery helicopters, Tzanetos said, are the next phase of technology and will work in tandem with Perseverance. The rover will collect sample tubes and the return lander will retrieve them. A rocket inside the lander will allow the machine to send samples back to earth. 

The goal, Tzanetos said, is innovation. 

"We're designing the next generation of helicopters to not only be able to pick up and carry a sample tube, but also drive around on the surface," he said. 

Another new development is that of a "hexacopter," or a six-motored helicopter about the size of a rover that would help get to previously inaccessible parts of Mars. 

"You can imagine in the future (that) you will have fleets of these Mars science helicopters flying around, bringing important payloads to parts of Mars that we've never been able to access before," Tzanetos said. 

Quelle: CBS News