The first cored sample of Mars rock is visible (at center) inside a titanium sample collection tube in this image from the Sampling and Caching System Camera (known as CacheCam) of NASA’s Perseverance rover. The image was taken on Sept. 6, 2021, (the 194th sol, or Martian day, of the mission), prior to the system attaching and sealing a metal cap onto the tube. The image was taken so the cored-rock sample would be in focus. The dark ring surrounding the sample is a portion of the sample tube’s inner wall. The bright, gold-colored ring surrounding the tube and sample is the “bearing race,” an asymmetrical flange that assists in shearing off a sample once the coring drill has bored into a rock. The outermost, mottled-brown disc in this image is a portion of the sample-handling arm inside the rover’s adaptive caching assembly.
Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Collecting samples from Mars and bringing them back to Earth will be a historic undertaking that started with the launch of NASA’s Perseverance rover on July 30, 2020. Perseverance collected its first rock core samples in September 2021. The rover will leave them on Mars for a future mission to retrieve and return to Earth. NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) are solidifying concepts for this proposed Mars Sample Return campaign. The current concept includes a lander, a fetch rover, an ascent vehicle to launch the sample container to Martian orbit, and a retrieval spacecraft with a payload for capturing and containing the samples and then sending them back to Earth to land in an unpopulated area.
Credits: Animation credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech, ESA, NASA/GSFC and NASA/GRC. Technical assistance: James Tralie, NASA Goddard. Music credit: Axel Coon and Ralf Goebel of Universal Production Music.
This illustration shows a concept for a set of future robots working together to ferry back samples collected on the surface of Mars by NASA’s Perseverance rover.
Credits: NASA/ESA/JPL-Caltech
Banner image: This composite of two images shows the hole drilled by NASA’s Perseverance rover during its successful sample-collection attempt. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Lonnie Shekhtman
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
