By NASA’s Mars Perseverance Rover has been relatively busy of late, moving around on the face of Mars taking in the sights as well as collecting sample cores from exposed jewels on the earth along with soil samples. Effects had been going relatively easily with the collection of the first five gemstone cores completed successfully, stored in tubes within the rover for a planned sample collection return charge in the future. Still, effects have gone a little crazy with the collection of the sixth core sample (and seventh sample collection overallWhile Perseverance successfully cored and uprooted the rearmost Martian gemstone sample (from a gemstone nicknamed Issole), Perseverance detected an anomaly as it was bringing the sample return process to a conclusion and automatically halted its systems. It passed during a phase known as the “ Coring Bit Dropoff”. This is where the drill bit along with its sample tube and just-cored sample is guided out of percussive drill at the end of the rover’s robotic arm and into the bit carousel located on the rover’s lattice. It was also a case of “ Perseverance phone home”.
NASA planning a calculated Heimlich maneuver
When the telemetry reached NASA, its scientists could see from the data that the core bit encountered advanced resistance than usual and before in the process to bobble. In response, NASA issued a new set of commands to Perseverance to prize the drill bit and core sample tube from the carousel and undock the robotic arm from the bit carousel Several images were taken including the lead image of this composition that easily shows a number of pebble-sized pieces of Martian gemstone debris in the carousel. This appears to have fallen out of the sample tube as it was being returned to the rover during the “ Coring Bit Dropoff”NASA says that it appears the debris stopped the Core Bit from seating itself rightly, but no apparent damage has been done as the rover arrestment the operation as it was programmed. Although the bit carousel can continue to operate successfully with the debris lodged as it is, the platoon is aiming to shoulder a debris junking – a advised Heimlich initiative if you will.
NASA says it’ll continue to dissect the data and determine an approach that will insure the debris does n’t end up nearly differently it should n’t during the junking process, but is confident it can get the job done.