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In recent days the NASA Perseverance rover released the first two samples on the surface of Mars. The first was deposited around December 21st and contained a part of the rock called Malay while on Christmas Eve the second test tube containing a portion of sedimentary rock was released. Recall that this is the backup strategy and not the primary one, after the backup plan Mars Sample Return mission it has been changed in the past months.
In the past few hours it has been announced that the third tube containing a sample was deposited on the surface. The whole release operation should last about two months while the main mission of the martian rover (one Martian year after landing). We will then continue with the extended mission lasting about 8 months during which the rover will travel the delta of the river that once filled the Jezero crater.
NASA Perseverance deposits third sample on Mars
According to what is reported NASA Perseverance deposited one of the two test tubes containing Martian regolith collected during the last operations on the Red Planet. In the tweets official can be read “just left another tube! This one is filled with sandy material collected from a nearby dune. It’s also my most recent sample, collected earlier this month”. Samples are not released in order of collection.
The choice to collect regolith and not only rock has various motivations. On the one hand, regolith will be one of the elements with which future astronauts will come into greater contact and which will therefore have to be carefully studied (for example, lunar regolith has given several “headscratcher” during the Apollo missions). On the other hand, since they are light particles, they have been moved by the wind over millions of years on the surface. This means that in a single sample it is possible to find fragmented pieces of rock which can also come from hundreds of kilometers away so as to have even more information on the geology of Mars.
As explained above, that of depositing the test tubes on the surface of the Red Planet is “only” the backup option. This foresees that two drones similar to Ingenuity (but with a small robotic arm) can collect them and deliver them to the lander inside which there is a rocket that will carry the transport capsule into orbit towards orbit where a spacecraft / orbiter will collect them “on the fly” and then fly them back to Earth (where they will land in the Texas desert around 2033). As to why sand that might cover the tubes won’t be a problem has been explained in the past and you can find the explanation in the links above.
The main strategy is that NASA Perseverance you deliver the samples directly to the lander where a robotic arm (built by ESA) will pick them up and deposit them in the rocket. The rover, inside, contains a copy of the samples that are being released to the surface except for the first ever sample which has only collected Martian atmosphere (and has no duplicate).
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