On January 17, 2022, the Perseverance rover on Mars performed a divine operation: turning the sample rotation wheel violently, and the two pebbles stuck in the entrance of the sample rotation wheel were directly ejected, and the fault was lifted. The American Perseverance is the most advanced rover in the world, and its power is jaw-dropping.
Why did the Perseverance perform a divine operation, was it full of food and support, or was it deliberately showing off? Of course not, not long ago, mars perseverance sampled a piece of Martian rock, and when the robotic arm held the No. 261 sample tube containing martian rocks close to the sample rotation wheel, the problem appeared, and there was a lot of resistance.
Soon, NASA experts in the United States found the reason for the resistance, and the photos taken by the perseverance robotic arm camera showed that the entrance of the sample rotation wheel was stuck by multiple Martian pebbles, which meant that the 261 sample tube could not be accurately placed, and the 6th Mars sampling of perseverance was declared a failure.
Now, it's imperative to quickly clean up these Martian pebbles, remove the unfilled sample tube 261, and dump the fragments of the Martian core in the sample tube 261 in preparation for the next resampling.
When the news that the Perseverance was stuck by pebbles came out, foreign netizens believed that it was a defect in the design, did not the design take into account the removal of rock debris?
On January 7, 2022, NASA/JPL experts answered this question head-on in their blogs: Perseverance had considered the problem of fragment jamming at the beginning of its design, and specially prepared a set of solutions, just need to start the solution, then the problem will be solved.
On January 15, 2022, mars perseverance performed a divine operation: the robotic arm first placed the no. 261 sample tube at an angle of about 9 degrees to the horizontal line, and then started the drill motor, the drill spindle rotated and extended forward, a small amount of core fragments fell out of the sample tube, and the robotic arm recorded the footage of the core fragments falling.
Then, the robotic arm placed the sample tube vertically, with the opening facing down, hoping that all the core fragments inside would fall under the action of gravity, but the Mastcam-Z camera imaging results showed that the sample tube still contained some samples, and it seemed that other ways to clean up were needed.
On January 17, 2022, Mars Perseverance was another god operation, started the drill motor again, rotated for 208 seconds, and kept extending and contracting, the core fragments inside the sample tube were finally emptied, and the Mastcam-Z camera imaged again, showing that the sample tube was empty, and the sample tube No. 261 could be sampled again.
The sample tube is empty, but the pebbles stuck at the entrance of the sample rotation wheel have not been cleared, there are two pieces at the entrance, and there are two pieces near the entrance, a total of four pieces, if the pebbles at the entrance are not removed, perseverance will not be able to collect samples normally, which will inevitably affect the United States Mars sampling mission.
On January 17, Mars Perseverance performed the third god operation, turning the sample rotation wheel violently, about 75 degrees, the two pebbles stuck at the entrance of the sample rotation wheel were directly ejected, the fault was lifted, the rotation wheel returned to its original position, and the WATSON camera imaging results showed that there were two new pebbles on the Martian ground.
The two pebbles near the entrance cannot be removed for the time being, but this will not affect the perseverance sampling, nor will it affect the perseverance driving, maybe in the process of driving, the two pebbles will naturally fall, so there is no need to care about it.
Perseverance performed three divine operations, sample tube 261 was emptied, and the two pebbles stuck at the entrance of the sample rotation wheel were also cleared, which meant that Perseverance could perform a new sampling mission, and the 7th Mars sampling mission, Perseverance prepared a total of 43 sample tubes, which means that a total of 43 successful samples were performed.
Sample tube 261 is just one of 43 sample tubes, and Perseverance collected so many Martian samples for the 2024 Mars sample return mission, when a new spacecraft will land on Mars Jezero Crater and send 43 sample tubes back to Earth.
The Perseverance rover landed on Mars for less than a year, but traveled 2.83 kilometers, and while the Mars sampling was part of the Perseverance mission, its more important mission was to move northwest into the delta region northwest of Jezero Crater, where it was in search of extraterrestrial life that might be hidden underground.
Compared with the advanced level of the Curiosity rover, perseverance is even more advanced, especially the wheels, which have been upgraded, not to mention 50 kilometers, even if it is 200 kilometers, there will be no problems. Curiosity has brought us many surprises, and I believe that Perseverance will bring more surprises in the future. Interesting and informative scientific content, please pay attention to the only WeChat public account: Interesting Exploration