Earlier than and After Perseverance Pattern Tube Shake: An animated GIF depicts the Martian floor beneath the Perseverance rover, exhibiting the outcomes of the January 15, 2022, percussive drill check to clear cored-rock fragments from one of many rover’s pattern tubes. Credit score: NASA/JPL-Caltech
The staff has made good progress implementing the preliminary restoration steps outlined final week. Our first success: The higher two pebbles had been ejected from the bit carousel throughout a check. That is nice information, as these small chunks of particles are believed to be the reason for the unsuccessful switch of the drill bit and pattern tube into the carousel again on December 29. Our second success: We seem to have eliminated most – if not all – of the cored rock that remained in Pattern Tube 261.
Right here is the most recent…
Pebbles in Bit Carousel
On Monday, January 17, the WATSON digital camera imaged the bit carousel and its pebbles – and in addition took photographs beneath the rover to ascertain simply what was down there earlier than any restoration methods had been utilized. Later that very same Martian day, we rotated the bit carousel about 75 levels earlier than returning it again to its authentic place. WATSON imaging confirmed the 2 higher pebbles had been ejected in the course of the course of. Tuesday night time we additionally acquired the second set of under-rover photographs, which present two new pebbles on the floor, indicating the ejected pebbles made it totally by means of bit carousel and again onto the floor of Mars as deliberate.
Rotating Perseverance’s Bit Carousel: An annotated GIF depicts a rotational check of Perseverance’s bit carousel during which two of 4 rock fragments had been ejected. The 5 photographs that make up the GIF had been obtained by the rover’s WATSON imager on January 17, 2022. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
The opposite two pebbles, situated beneath the bit carousel, stay. It's fascinating to notice that among the preliminary trials carried out on our testbed right here on Earth point out that the placement of the 2 leftover pebbles could not pose a major drawback with bit carousel operation, however we're persevering with evaluation and testing to verify this.
Remaining Pattern in Tube
On Saturday, January 15, the staff carried out an experiment utilizing Perseverance’s rotary-percussive drill. After the robotic arm oriented the drill with Pattern Tube 261’s open finish angled round 9 levels beneath horizontal, the rover’s drill spindle rotated after which prolonged. Our exceptional Mastcam-Z instrument (which has video functionality beforehand used to doc a few of Ingenuity’s flights) captured the occasion. The imagery from the experiment exhibits a small quantity of pattern materials falling out of the drill bit/pattern tube. Later that very same Martian day, the bit was positioned vertically over “Issole” (the rock that offered this newest core) to see if extra pattern would fall out beneath the pressure of gravity. Nonetheless, Mastcam-Z imaging of 261’s inside after this subsequent maneuver confirmed it nonetheless contained some pattern.
Perseverance Expels Rock Fragments: A portion of a cored-rock pattern is ejected from the rotary percussive drill on NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover. The imagery was collected by the rover’s Mastcam-Z instrument on January 15, 2022. Credit score: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS
Provided that among the pattern had already been misplaced, the staff determined it was time to return the remainder of the pattern to Mars and hopefully fully empty the tube to prepared it for probably one other sampling try. On Monday, January 17, the staff commanded one other operation of the rotary percussive drill in an try and dislodge extra materials from the tube. With the tube’s open finish nonetheless pointed in direction of the floor, we basically shook the heck out of it for 208 seconds – via the percussive perform on the drill. Mastcam-Z imagery taken after the occasion exhibits that a number of items of pattern had been dumped onto the floor. Is Tube 261 away from rock pattern? Now we have new Mastcam-Z photographs wanting down the drill bit into the pattern container that point out little if any particles from the cored-rock pattern stays. The pattern tube has been cleared for reuse by the mission.
Perseverance’s Pattern Tube Appears Clear: This picture, taken by the Mastcam-Z digital camera aboard NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover on January 20, 2022, exhibits the rover efficiently expelled the remaining giant fragments of cored rock from a pattern tube held in its drill. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS
Future Strikes
The staff continues to be reviewing the info and discussing subsequent steps. Like all Mars missions, we’ve had some sudden challenges. Every time, the staff and our rover have risen to the event. We anticipate the identical outcome this time – by taking incremental steps, analyzing outcomes, after which shifting on, we plan to totally resolve this problem and get again to exploration and sampling at Jezero Crater.
Written by Rick Welch, Deputy Venture Supervisor at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
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