NASA's Mars Perseverance Rover Gets Its Sample Handling System
The system will be collecting and storing Martian rock and soil. Its installation marks another milestone in the march toward the July launch period.
With the launch period for NASA's Mars
Perseverance rover opening in a little less than four months, the
six-wheeler is reaching significant pre-launch milestones almost daily at the
Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. The rover had some components
removed prior to being shipped from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in
Southern California to the Cape in early February. Last week, Perseverance's assembly, test and launch
operations team integrated two components that will play key roles in the
acquisition, containment and eventual return to Earth of humanity's first
samples from another planet: the Adaptive Caching Assembly and the Bit Carousel.
The Bit Carousel contains the nine drill bits Perseverance will use to sample
Martian rock and dust. Attached to the top front of the rover on
March 7 and resembling a flying saucer, it also is the gateway for the samples to move into the belly of
the rover for assessment and processing by the Adaptive Caching System.
Installed
on March 3, the Adaptive Caching Assembly consists of seven motors and more
than 3,000 parts, all working in unison to collect samples from the surface of
Mars. A chief component of the assembly is the Sample Handling Arm, which will move
sample tubes to the main robotic arm's coring drill and then transfer the filled
sample tubes into a space to be sealed and stored.
The
installation and testing of the electrical wiring for both the Adaptive Caching
Assembly and Bit Carousel were completed on March 11.
"With
the addition of the Adaptive Caching Assembly and Bit Carousel, the heart of
our sample collection system is now on board the rover," said Matt
Wallace, deputy project manager of the Mars 2020 mission at JPL. "Our
final but most crucial elements to install will be the sample tubes that will contain
the first samples that will be brought from another planet back to Earth for
analysis. We will keep these pristine until we integrate them in a couple of
months."
Currently,
the coronavirus has not impacted the Mars Perseverance rover launch schedule. Launch
preparations are continuing.
The
Perseverance rover is a robotic scientist weighing just under 2,300 pounds (1,043
kilograms). It will search for signs of past microbial life, characterize Mars'
climate and geology, collect samples for future return to Earth and help pave
the way for human exploration of the Red Planet. No matter what day Perseverance
launches during the launch period, which extends from July 17 through Aug. 5, it
will alight on Mars' Jezero Crater just after 3:40 p.m. EST (12:40 p.m. PST) on
Feb. 18, 2021.
JPL, which is managed by Caltech in Pasadena, is building and
will manage operations of the Mars Perseverance rover for NASA. The agency's Launch
Services Program, based at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, is
responsible for launch management. The Mars
2020 project with its Perseverance rover is part of a larger program that
includes missions to the Moon as a way to prepare for human exploration of the
Red Planet. Charged with returning astronauts to the Moon by 2024, NASA will
establish a sustained human presence on and around the Moon by 2028 through
NASA's Artemis lunar exploration plans.
For more
information about the mission, go to:
https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/
For more about
NASA's Moon to Mars plans, visit:
https://www.nasa.gov/topics/moon-to-mars
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