Perseverance dumps soil samples back into Mars as NASA tries to get rid of rock anomaly

NASA's Mars Perseverance rover had to halt its soil sample collection on the red planet after a pebble got stuck in its collection system. However, the team handling the rover has come up with a plan to get rid of the anomaly, and that is by dumping the previously collected samples to empty the sample tube. "Although this scenario was never designed or planned for prior to launch, it turns out dumping a core from an open tube is a fairly straightforward process", the agency's Perseverance team said in its report. 

According to NASA, the Mars 2020 mission team developed and tested operational sequences earlier this week to get rid of the obstructing pebble. It is worth mentioning that the rover will be returning the contents of only the Sample Tube 261, which was the latest cored sample. 

What exactly happened with the rover?

The debris is preventing the rover's robotic arm from correctly handing off the sample-filled tube for sealing and storage. In a previous mission report, the Perseverance team revealed that the rover's sensor highlighted resistance when the collected Martian contents were being transferred into Perseverance's bit carousel. The bit carousel is where the collected bits are stored and tubes are passed to the tube processing hardware inside the rover. Since the collected sample was unable to enter the processing unit, Perseverance had to halt its operations and dial home for help. 

How would emptying sample tubes help?

Answering how would dumping the collected contents help with overcoming the anomaly, NASA said "at present, we are not certain how much cored rock continues to reside in Tube 261". It also revealed that after emptying the tube, engineers would command Perseverance to do two rotation tests of the bit carousel. "Our expectations are that these rotations – and any subsequent pebble movement – will help guide our team, providing them the necessary information on how to proceed", the mission team's report read. 

The engineers expect that Perseverance will be parked in its current spot for a few more days, however, they vowed to get rid of the rocky debris and prevent a similar reoccurrence during future sampling. 

Image: Twitter/@NASAPersevere