Mars Rover Comes Up Empty in First Try at Getting Rock Sample

aristarchus and fx_68 both bring us news of a slight Perseverence hiccup:

Perseverance fails at first sample collection? At Endgadget

NASA's Perseverance rover just had a rare misstep. The space agency has revealed that the robotic vehicle failed to collect Mars rock samples during its first attempt. While the percussive drill, coring bit and sample tube processing worked "as intended," a probe indicated that the tube was empty - not exactly what scientists were expecting when everything else checked out.

Scientists are still investigating what happened and may not have an answer for a few days. Perseverance project manager Jennifer Trosper said the team suspected the rock might have reacted in an unexpected way during the coring process. The equipment is likely fine, in other words.

The Martian surface has created problems more than once. The Phoenix Lander had trouble gathering "sticky" soil in 2008, for instance, while Curiosity and InSight have also had trouble cracking into rocks and the surface itself.

Of course, there is not yet a mechanism in place to retrieve the tubes, if they managed to get filled. But if at first you do not succeed, practice saves stitching early worms.

And secondly:

NASA's newest Mars rover has come up empty in its first attempt to pick up a rock sample to eventually be brought back to Earth

The rover Perseverance drilled into the floor of the planet's Jezero Crater to extract a finger-sized sample from slabs of flat rocks. The drill seemed to work as intended, but it appeared no rock made it into the sample tube, the agency said Friday.

[...] The next step will be using a camera mounted on a robotic arm to inspect inside the hole "and see what's down there," said NASA project scientist Ken Farley. He said they might see the broken rock core, or might discover the sample had turned to sand. "The rock properties might be different than[sic] we expected," he said.

[...] NASA aims to collect up to 31 samples in tubes and stash them for pickup in about a decade. Plans call for the samples to be brought to Earth in the early 2030s in another mission with the European Space Agency.

Full story: https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/mars-rover-empty-1st-rock-sample-79326299

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