Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UArizona
The Martian region before your eyes may seem a bit too irregular to allow for a safe landing of a human-made machine, but that’s an impression. What you’re looking at is, in fact, one of the landing sites NASA is considering for the upcoming Sample Return mission.
Sample Return is a project of both NASA and its European counterpart, ESA, aimed at bringing back from Mars viable terrain samples for study. Still in the works, it relies heavily on the Perseverance rover, already there gathering samples to be brought back.
As most of you already know, Perseverance is in a place called the Jezero Crater, and it’s there where it does its thing. It’s probably from that place that the first samples will head back, but that doesn’t mean NASA is not looking at other options.
One of them would be the terrains to the west of the Jezero Crater, meaning the place pictured here. Based on diverse colors and textures seen there by the HiRISE camera, which snapped this here photo back in January 2022, NASA concluded “this would be an interesting region to explore.”
The agency says the image was “acquired based on a hopeful scenario in which the Perseverance rover has an extended mission or two and travels outside of Jezero Crater,” a thing that doesn’t look all that far-fetched given the rover’s achievements in the year or so it’s been on the planet.
As for the Mars Sample Return mission, earlier this week it was announced Perseverance will get an expanded role in the mission, completely replacing the Sample Fetch Rover that was originally planned.
Sample Return will launch in two stages: first, the Earth Return Orbiter in the fall of 2027 and the Sample Retrieval Lander in the summer of 2028. Samples are expected back no sooner than 2033.
As most of you already know, Perseverance is in a place called the Jezero Crater, and it’s there where it does its thing. It’s probably from that place that the first samples will head back, but that doesn’t mean NASA is not looking at other options.
One of them would be the terrains to the west of the Jezero Crater, meaning the place pictured here. Based on diverse colors and textures seen there by the HiRISE camera, which snapped this here photo back in January 2022, NASA concluded “this would be an interesting region to explore.”
The agency says the image was “acquired based on a hopeful scenario in which the Perseverance rover has an extended mission or two and travels outside of Jezero Crater,” a thing that doesn’t look all that far-fetched given the rover’s achievements in the year or so it’s been on the planet.
As for the Mars Sample Return mission, earlier this week it was announced Perseverance will get an expanded role in the mission, completely replacing the Sample Fetch Rover that was originally planned.
Sample Return will launch in two stages: first, the Earth Return Orbiter in the fall of 2027 and the Sample Retrieval Lander in the summer of 2028. Samples are expected back no sooner than 2033.
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