The Perseverance Rover from NASA has spent more than a year exploring Mars and has brought nine samples of soil and rocks back to Earth. This week, the rover began looking for potential landing sites for the Mars Sample Return (MSR) Campaign.
Perseverance, the rover collecting samples from the ancient river delta in the Jezero Crater is searching for a relatively flat, lander-friendly spot nearby. The crew is searching for a pancake-shaped zone with a 200-foot radius since rocks and uneven terrain may make it too difficult for a lander to land.
NASA Mars Perseverance Rover To Help Space Agency Find 'Dull Landing Space' For Mars Sample Return
According to Universe Today, the NASA Mars Perseverance Rover will have to choose a suitable location for the Mars Sample Return (MSR) to successfully land, gather the samples, and launch them back to Earth. Since robotic explorers performed all previous investigations, MSR will be the first for scientists on Earth to study and interpret samples from Mars directly.
Sites of interest are being considered based on their proximity to the delta and one another and the fact that the terrain is relatively flat and lander-friendly. The samples' proximity to the delta may make them the best candidates for studying previous life. It will take less time to gather them if they are close together.
Like all missions, having a surface free of debris will facilitate a simple landing. However, a flat spot will guarantee a correct launch trajectory for the samples into orbit and eventually back to Earth, as MSR will be the first to launch something from the surface of Mars.
"The Perseverance team pulled out all the stops for us because Mars Sample Return has unique needs when it comes to where we operate."
said MSR Program Manager Richard Cook of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California in a press statement. "The flatter and more uninspiring the vista, the better we like it because while there are a lot of things that need to be done when we arrive to pick up the samples, sightseeing is not one of them."
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A 200-foot (60-meter) ring of almost level land without any boulders larger than 7.5 inches (19 centimeters) in diameter is required for the upcoming MSR missions. The MSR crew is already thinking about a spot, which they are referring to as the "landing strip" because of how level it seems. The MSR crew collected detailed imagery of the area using Perseverance's navigation cameras to look closely at the landing strip.
How MSR Will Find Items To Be Returned
Three different vehicles will be deployed to the Martian surface as part of the upcoming MSR mission, Space.com reported. These include a "fetch rover," designed by the European Space Agency, the Sample Retrieval Lander (SRL), and the Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV).
The Sample Return Lander, a miniature launchpad with a robotic arm, will receive the samples that the fetch rover has collected from Perseverance after first receiving them from Perseverance.
SRL will then use its arm to transfer Perseverance's obtained materials from the fetch rover into the 10-foot-tall (3-meter) MAV.
The MAV will then be put into orbit, where an ESA orbiter will pick it up and bring it back to Earth
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