The Red Planet rover captured a portrait of a sample repository that it has assembled with 10 backup sample tubes that could be returned to Earth by a future mission. Even space robots know what “photos or it didn’t happen” means: NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover has provided a panorama of its recently completed sample depot a major milestone for the mission and humanity’s first collection of samples on another planet. The panorama, compiled from 368 images sent back to Earth, captures more than a month of careful positioning and mapping of 10 titanium tubes.
Eight of these tubes are filled with rock and regolith (broken rock and dust), with one being an atmospheric sample and one being a “witness” tube. The rover photographed the depot using the Mastcam-Z camera at the top of its mast, or “head,” on January 31, 2023. The color was adjusted to show the surface of Mars approximately as it would appear to the human eye.
The repository represents a backup collection of samples that could be retrieved in the future by the Mars Sample Return campaign, a joint effort between NASA and ESA (European Space Agency) to bring samples of Mars to Earth for closer study. The rover began building the warehouse on December 21, 2022, and precisely positioned the tubes in case they needed to be retrieved in the future.
The primary tubes are placed in the belly of Perseverance, which will pass through them, along with future samples taken during the sample lander mission as part of the campaign. If something were to happen to the rover that would prevent it from delivering the tubes directly to the lander, samples could be retrieved from the depot instead. (Learn more about all 18 samples taken so far.)
Perseverance built a warehouse at “Three Forks”, a location in Lake Crater. Billions of years ago, a river flowed into the crater, carrying sediment that created the steep fan-shaped delta that the rover will drive out in the coming months.
While the surface of Mars is now cold, dry, and generally inhospitable to life, ancient Mars was likely similar to Earth—and could have supported microbial life if it ever formed on the red planet. The samples that Perseverance is collecting could help scientists determine whether life ever left traces at a place like Crater Lake.
More about the mission
A key focus of the Perseverance 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 store Martian rock and regolith (broken rock and dust).
Subsequent NASA missions in collaboration with ESA (European Space Agency) sent 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 lunar exploration approach to Mars, which includes the Artemis lunar missions to help prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet.
JPL, managed for NASA by Caltech in Pasadena, California, built and operates the Perseverance rover. Arizona State University manages the operation of the Mastcam-Z instrument, working with Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego to design, manufacture, test and operate the cameras, and in collaboration with the university’s Neils Bohr Institute. of Copenhagen on the design, manufacture and testing of calibration targets.
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