NASA’s Perseverance Rover to Begin Building Martian Sample Depot – NASA Mars Exploration

The 10 sample tubes being dropped on Mars’ surface so they can be studied on Earth in the future carry an amazing diversity of Red Planet geology.

In the coming days, NASA’s Perseverance rover is expected to begin building the first sample depot on another world. This will mark a crucial milestone in the NASA-ESA (European Space Agency) Mars Sample Return campaign, which aims to bring Mars samples to Earth for closer study.

The depot-building process starts when the rover drops one of its titanium sample tubes carrying a chalk-size core of rock from its belly 2.9 feet (88.8…