NASA’s Perseverance Rover Successfully Cores Its First Rock

The drill hole from Perseverance’s second sample-collection attempt can be seen, in this composite of two images taken on Sept. 1, by one of the rover’s navigation cameras.
Image © NASA

NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover has finally successfully scored its first Martian rock. The rover had failed in the first attempt it made on August 5. Data received by NASA on Wednesday, September 1, showed that the sample was present in the collection tube after coring. However, according to NASA, the images taken after the rover’s robotic arm finished the process, were inconclusive because of the poor sunlight. 

Perseverance’s Sampling and Caching System uses a rotary-percussive drill and a hollow coring bit at the end of its 7-foot-long (2-meter-long) robotic arm to extract samples slightly thicker than a pencil. Within the bit during coring is a sample tube. After completing yesterday’s coring, Perseverance maneuvered the corer, bit, and open end of the sample tube in order to be imaged by the rover’s Mastcam-Z instrument. The target for the sample collection attempt was a briefcase-size rock belonging to a ridgeline that is more than half-a-mile (900 meters) long and contains rock outcrops and boulders. 

This Sept. 1 image from NASA’s Perseverance rover shows a sample tube with its cored-rock contents inside. The bronze-colored outer-ring is the coring bit. The lighter-colored inner-ring is the open end of the tube, and inside is a rock core sample slightly thicker than a pencil. In a later image, the rock sample was not clearly evident inside the tube.
Image © NASA

The initial set of images from Mastcam-Z showed the end of a cored rock within the sample tube. After taking these images, the rover began a procedure called “percuss to ingest,” which vibrates the drill bit and tube for one second, five separate times. The movement is designed to clear the lip of the sample tube of any residual material. The action can also cause a sample to slide down farther into the tube. After the rover finished the percuss-to-ingest procedure, it took a second set of Mastcam-Z images. In these images, the lighting is poor, and internal portions of the sample tube are not visible.

“We did what we came to do. We will work through this small hiccup with the lighting conditions in the images and remain encouraged that there is a sample in this tube," said Jennifer Trosper, project manager at Jet Propulsion Laboratories, NASA, in a statement. The official Twitter handle of the rover posted the images of the sample.

#SamplingMars update: first images show a sample in the tube after coring. But pics I took after an arm move are inconclusive due to poor lighting. I’m taking more photos in better light to confirm that we still have an intact core in the tube.

Read more: https://t.co/MqeD68KqYw pic.twitter.com/VYXErWrrEb

— NASA's Perseverance Mars Rover (@NASAPersevere) September 2, 2021

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. 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 in Pasadena, California, built and manages operations of the Perseverance rover.