1, NASA’s Perseverance rover unfurled its arm, placed a drill bit at the Martian surface, and drilled about 2 inches, or 6 centimeters, down to extract a rock core.
The rover later sealed the rock core in its tube.
Mars Sample Return is a multi-mission campaign designed to retrieve the cores Perseverance will collect over the next several years.
«Returning a sample from Mars has been a priority for the planetary science community since the 1980s, and the potential opportunity to finally realize this goal has unleashed a torrent of creativity,» said Michael Meyer, lead scientist for NASA’s Mars Exploration Program based at NASA Headquarters in Washington.