Perseverance

One of the more ambitious things the Perseverance rover currently exploring the surface of Mars has been doing is gathering samples of Martian rocks and soil, setting them aside for a future mission to Mars to retrieve and return to Earth. NASA has confirmed that testing is underway on what it calls the most sophisticated endeavor ever attempted on Mars as it prepares a mission to retrieve the rock and soil samples Perseverance is collecting.

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NASA conducted the 17th flight for the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter on Sunday, December 5. Everything went as planned during the helicopter's 614-foot traverse to the northeast. However, during the final descent phase of the flight, the communications link between Ingenuity and the Perseverance Mars rover was disrupted. It appears the helicopter was able to land successfully. Approximately 15 minutes after the radio link was lost, Perseverance received packets of Ingenuity telemetry indicating the battery and flight electronics were healthy.

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NASA has shared a video that the Perseverance recorded of the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter's 13th flight. The flight happened on September 4, and the video gives us the best look yet at the helicopter in action. Unfortunately, due to the vast distance, the helicopter is operating away from the rover, it's still very difficult to see it in some frames of the video. However, NASA did circle the helicopter, making it easier to keep track of.

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NASA has been conducting some incredible science on the surface of Mars with its Perseverance Mars rover and the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter. Ingenuity was a particularly important experiment that showed controlled flight was possible on another planet for the first time. Ingenuity performed so well that its mission was extended. It's still helping the Perseverance science team explore the Red Planet.

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NASA's Perseverance Rover is on the surface of the Red Planet, conducting science operations looking for evidence of ancient microbial life and water in the distant past. Among the instruments and tools aboard the rover are a pair of microphones that NASA uses to record sounds on the Red Planet. NASA's microphones add a new dimension to the exploration of Mars and so far have recorded hours of sounds.

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NASA's Perseverance rover has been on the surface of Mars for just about eight months now, and in that time, it has taken samples of Martian rock to determine what secrets may be contained within. Perseverance, however, is not going to analyze these samples itself on the surface of Mars, but rather NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) are working on a multi-mission schedule to bring those samples back to Earth for analysis later this decade.

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NASA has two interactive tools that enable the public to follow its Mars Perseverance rover as it makes its way around the Red Planet. One of the tools is designed to follow the rover "as though you were standing on the surface of Mars," according to the space agency, while the other tool shows Perseverance and Ingenuity's current location and the stops from their past journeys.

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Only two days after successfully acquiring its first Mars rock sample for storage in a titanium tube, NASA collected and stored a second sample -- and it is already scouting for the perfect place from which to drill its third core. The space agency has named these first two samples "Montdenier" and "Montagnac," and they've already revealed some details about the Martian planet.

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A few days after announcing that the Perseverance rover's second sample collection effort was a success, NASA has shared images of the actual sample within the titanium tube where it is stored. The sample image was made possible using a camera on the rover called the Sampling and Caching System Camera, confirming that a tiny piece of Mars has been fully and completely stored.

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Yesterday, the Ingenuity helicopter completed its 13th flight taking it over the South Seitah area, where it captured images from a lower altitude than it has in the past. For the 13th mission, the helicopter again flew to the area of rock outcrops that it took images of during its 12 flight. The difference between flight number 12 and flight number 13 was the direction of the images. Flight 13 images were to looking in the opposite direction.

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NASA is celebrating confirmation via data it received from its Perseverance Rover that indicates it has completed the collection of its first rock core sample on Mars. Data was received from the rover on September 1, indicating that successful coring operations had been completed. Images gathered from Perseverance clearly show an intact sample present in the sample collection tube after coring.

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NASA has updated its Perseverance rock sampling plans, revealing the process it will initiate in the coming days as it determines where to drill next for a core sample. The news comes only a couple of weeks after the first drill sampling attempt failed, an issue believed to have been caused by rock composition that differed from what experts had expected.

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