NASA is blaming unusually soft rock for last week’s sampling fiasco on Mars.
FILE - This Tuesday, April 6, 2021 image made available by NASA shows the Perseverance Mars rover, foreground, and the Ingenuity helicopter about 13 feet behind. This composite image was made by the WASTON camera on the rover's robotic arm on the 46th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. On Friday, Aug. 6, 2021, NASA’s newest Mars rover came up empty in its first attempt to pick up a rock sample to eventually be brought back to Earth. CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.
Since then, engineers have determined the rock was not strong enough to produce a core sample, and the small, powdery fragments remained in the hole or ended up in the cuttings pile — or both. So the rover is moving on to the next sampling site in its quest for signs of ancient Martian life; it should arrive there by early next month.
“It reminds me yet again of the nature of exploration,” she said. "A specific result is never guaranteed no matter how much you prepare.” It’s not the first time that a Mars lander has run into ground resistance. A German digger on NASA’s InSight lander failed to burrow more than a couple feet, far short of its target. The clumping soil didn’t provide enough friction for the heat-measuring device, and experimenters gave up in January.
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NASA blames Mars rover sampling fiasco on bad, powdery rockCAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA is blaming unusually soft rock for last week’s sampling fiasco on Mars. The Perseverance rover came up empty after attempting to collect its first core sample on the red planet for eventual return to Earth.
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