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Rover Mars Mission: The Mars Explorer of the American space agency NASA has started dropping rock samples collected on its behalf on the surface of the planet. In the future, NASA will send a separate spacecraft to retrieve the samples and bring them back to Earth. The rover was landed on Mars in the year 2021. It has been collecting rock, soil and atmospheric samples since September 2021 in the Jezero Crater region of Mars.
NASA officials said studying the samples on Earth would be important to help scientists understand whether Mars ever had life. NASA said that Perseverance has collected 18 different samples. The space agency is planning to bring back the material collected during the 2028 Mars mission.
Sent to find evidence related to life
NASA sent Perseverance Rover to find evidence related to life on Planet Mars. Sampling work is almost complete to find evidence related to life. This is a joint mission, which is being done in collaboration with the European Space Agency. It has been sent to Mars with the help of a small rocket. All these samples will be sent back to the earth. If all the things are done properly then in the year 2033 the sample can be brought to the earth.
Samples are placed in the storage area
The samples taken from Mars are kept in a storage area inside the rover. They are kept inside an air-tight titanium tube to protect them from the harsh conditions on Planet Mars. Most of them will be kept inside a container till the mission is completed. But NASA decided to drop 10 of those samples on the planet’s ground in case something goes wrong with the people inside the rover.
NASA has already said that the tubes dropped on the surface of the ground can be picked up with the help of a helicopter-like vehicle and can be delivered to the rocket to bring them to the earth. The space agency has already shown that its Ingenuity helicopter can operate successfully on the planet.