NASA Perseverance’s first sampling on Mars ended in failure

NASA’s Perseverance rover (Perseverance) recently encountered unexpected setbacks on Mars. During the first sampling, although Perseverance carried out various operations such as drilling and coring “as planned,” no rock samples were left in the final sampling tube, which was completely beyond NASA’s expectations. Scientists are currently investigating the reasons for this result, but there may not be an answer in the short term. According to Jennifer Trosper, the head of Perseverance, the team’s current guess is that the rock had unexpected reaction activity during the coring process. In other words, the equipment on the rover should not be faulty.

In fact, before that, Phoenix Lander, Curiosity, and InSight had encountered problems when sampling the surface of Mars. I hope that after NASA analyzes and determines the cause, Perseverance can continue to complete the mission smoothly.