NASA blames the wrong kind of Martian rock for Perseverance sample failure Mars rover Perseverance failed in its first attempt to collect a sample of rock from the Red Planet because the material crumbled to dust, NASA scientists have said. Last week, the nuke-powered science lab extended its robotic arm to bore 7cm into the seemingly hard surface, gather a core of material, and bottle it in a sample …
As I understand the problems with the Insight Heat Probe Drill, it sounds like the same sort of issue - what was seen as 'rock' disintegrated rather than holding together or fracturing.
Up until now, boffins have been limited to studying Mars meteorites and non-invasive scans from Mars missions. Perhaps we're looking at a surface of fine grain regolith, more like Bennu, rather than the more consolidated surface and rocks found on the Moon.
With science, no result is a result, even if it doesn't make for a good headline.
Have a pint while you're puzzling it out.
Yes indeed, and mud at the bottom of a lake on a low gravity planet that dried out in an atmosphere thats already getting a bit too thin to blow dust about isn't likely to get compacted into something very strong.
Consequently, when some robothing tries to cut cores from the lake-bed using a hollow drill fitted with teeth big and sharp enough to cut through hard rock, it follows that the core is likely to disintegrate into something rather like fine sand rather than just standing there.
I do wonder if they tried using a Perseverance test vehicle to drill holes in dried-out lake-beds in the Mojave or some other, even drier, part of the south-west USA or central Australia. But surely they must have tried that. . . mustn't they?
I do wonder if they tried using a Perseverance test vehicle to drill holes in dried-out lake-beds in the Mojave or some other, even drier, part of the south-west USA or central Australia. But surely they must have tried that. . . mustn't they?
I guess budget & time constraints might have prevented test drilling in every potential surface. But maybe it's something that could be done now to compare results to Mars and test theories.
If they had wetted it first, it may have lubricated the drill sufficiently to prevent it it destroying the structure. If it is sand they are drilling, they would just need to wait for nightfall and the water would have frozen to a solid plug. OK, it would be a "contaminated"sample but anything is better than nothing at all.
"OK, it would be a "contaminated"sample"
Not if they condensed it out of the atmosphere. It might take a few weeks to collect a large enough quantity, but if there is one thing they've got, it's time.
I'd be kinda worried about reconstituted mud drying back out and clogging up the works, though ...
I made the comment because even if it is atmospheric water, it would still be contaminated. In the spirit of scientific endeavour, one of the the things they surely want to know is how much water exists at various depths and would there be be any chance of distilling water from local sand/dust/shale etc.
wrt mud clogging up the works, surely this is a natural hazard they have already thought about. Although, since they have already met the wrong kind of rock, maybe not.
Thinking about the problems though - it seems they could have done with a small hoover to take dust samples from the drill site. Plenty of earthbound drills have attached hoover tubes (to keep the dust from your carpet/softfurnishings) so it wouldn't have been that hard to adapt the technology for the lower atmos pressure. It is obvious from the photo that a sizeable sample could have been obtained from the edge of the hole. If there is enough atmos to fly, there is certainly enough to hoover up a dust sample.
What a waste of money!
90 overpaid people to drill a bloody hole with nothing to show for it. Even our own council can't beat that record!
Used parachutes and other mechanical debris littering the planet. Again this is just pure folly.
I await the usual cascade of downvotes and clever (but misguided) comments.
Fix the Earth first!
Citizen Smith.
The problem is that the boring tool you need for one soil or rock type is not the appropriate choice for another soil or rock type.
Plus the ground can just be a sod (no pun intended) sometimes.
Even in London, with a well known stratigraphy, site investigation boreholes sometimes come back with 'no recovery' at certain depths, and that happens with (as I just noted) a good idea of what we're boring, the right kit in good condition with good, skilled, drillers operating it.
I suspect that this thing has basically one type of coring bit, which has to handle any and all rock types its operators want to try and core. From the article, it seems they mistook a very weakly cemented silt (soil) for a more competent rock.
Not a silly question at all (have an upvote).
Push-sampling is a standard technique for (trying to) sample soft soils.
However
(i) the kit on the rover may not actually be set up to do that
(ii) if they are set up to core rock, they are probably looking for 'rock from anywhere' rather than 'something from specifically here'.
So I suspect they'll trundle off and try somewhere else
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2025
