Crumbling soil forced the Perseverance rover to stop drilling
Mars sampling by the Perseverance rover has been completely suspended indefinitely. The specialists working with the rover were forced to take such measures due to the fact that the carousel mechanism inside the rover was contaminated, which fell off the sampling tube.
And its presence now does not make it possible to complete the algorithm for sealing tubes with a core. This event became known from the official announcement, which was published on the NASA portal.
The next problems of the rover and methods for solving it
Mars rover "Perseverance" is the "first sign" implemented as part of the project Mars Sample Return Mission (MSR), such firms as NASA and ESA.
So if everything goes according to the previously planned plan, then the collected samples completely in sealed titanium containers will have to be delivered to Earth in the 2030s.
The rover began performing sample assembly tasks last summer. And during this time, seven samples have already been received (at the same time, the air of Mars is sealed in one test tube, and another witness tube needed to trap any contaminants from the spacecraft during sampling breeds).
So December 29, 2021 the sixth core was taken from the rock formation "Issole". That's just when the drill bit with the installed sampling tube had to be moved from the manipulator to called a carousel mechanism (to reset the bit), special sensors signaled that an abnormal situation.
The work was stopped, and the pictures taken showed that there were several small pieces of rock inside the carousel, which most likely got there from the sampling tube.
At the moment, all work on the selection of soil has been stopped, and the engineers will be engaged in the procedures for cleaning the carousel, moreover, the engineers who created it foresaw the possibility of such a situation and worked out an algorithm for its cleaning.
Well, we will wait until the cleaning procedure is over, and the work on collecting samples will continue. After all, this work will allow scientists in the earth's laboratories to study the Martian rock in the future and, possibly, make unique discoveries.
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