A rapid turn and tremor eased NASA’s Perseverance rover on Mars for the last two pebbles that clogged its sampling system.
The problems began during the rover sixth Red Planet rock trial, December 29th. Pebbles got stuck along the rover’s bit carousel, which sends rock samples into the spacecraft’s internal handling system for processing. After a few weeks of analysis became Perseverance rover tried to get rid of the last annoying pebbles by backing up on some nearby rocks. The rover, which lay on top of the rocks, made a twist with one foot to shake the debris loose, according to NASA.
“When you run into a challenge, sometimes it’s best to step back and shake it off,” mission team members said Tuesday (January 25) via Perseverance’s Twitter account. “I turned up on some nearby rocks to get tilted, and made a turn with one foot. Somewhere along the way, I shook the other two pebbles in my sampling system loose. Soon back to #SamplingMars!”
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When you run into a challenge, it’s sometimes best to step back and shake it off. Somewhere along the way, I have shaken the other two pebbles loose in my sampling system. Back to #SamplingMars soon! pic.twitter.com/gAs6E0tGcfJanuary 25, 2022
Previous recovery efforts were made to clear some of those clogged pieces of stone. On January 15, the rover team performed a test to push rock fragments out of Perseverance’s rotating percussive drill. The rover’s robotic arm oriented the drill downward and rotated it, causing a small amount of the clogged sample to fall to the surface of Mars, according to a NASA blog post released January 21st.
The team then decided to dump the rest of the sample from Tube 261 on January 17, also using the rover’s rotating percussive drill. By pointing the tube at the ground and shaking it for 208 seconds, the rover was able to remove most, if not all, of the dirt from the tube, meaning it can be reused to cache a fresh rock sample, according to the blog post.
On January 17, the rover team also rotated the bite carousel around 75 degrees and then back to its original position. This maneuver threw out two upper pebbles, which are believed to have blocked the rover from processing its final sample, mission team members said in a tweet posted January 21st.
“Like all Mars missions, we have had some unexpected challenges. Each time, the team and our rover have risen to the occasion,” NASA officials wrote in the blog post. “We expect the same result this time – by taking step-by-step steps, analyzing results and then moving on, we fully plan to address this challenge and return to exploration and sampling at Jezero Crater.”
A primary goal of the Perseverance mission is to collect rock samples for a planned one test-return mission to pick up in the future and bring to Earth for scientists to study on their own.
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