NASA's Mars Exploration Program (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech) 

Sol 0181:  Kicking off the Sampling Sol Path at Citadelle

The panorama is made up of 97 individual Mastcam-Z images stitched together. The images were taken on Sol 0181 (August 23, 2021).

This week in Jezero crater, Perseverance is hard at work carrying out sampling-related activities at the Citadelle location. On Earth, preparing for sampling is a massive undertaking and involves careful coordination across all instrument teams, scientists, and engineers; it’s a huge team effort!

As a member of the science operations team, I’ve been involved in the development of Perseverance’s sampling strategy – an effort that has been ongoing since before Perseverance landed on Mars! We’ve been developing what we refer to as the “sampling sol path,” which outlines the standardized sequence of events that we plan to carry out at each sampling location. A “sol” is a martian day, so “sol path” refers to the rover’s activities over the course of a few sols. In the case of the sampling sol path, we’re referring to all of the activities related to a sampling event, a process that takes over a week to complete on Mars. Our sampling sol path includes the following key milestones:

1. Drive up to the intended sampling location.

2. Perform reconnaissance observations with our scientific instruments and cameras.

3. Use the drill to grind away the upper centimeter of the rock surface, creating an abrasion patch.

4. Analyze the fresh rock surface inside the abrasion patch with our science instruments.

5. Select a nearby rock target for coring.

6. Use the drill to extract a core sample from the rock.

7. Deliver the core (inside its sample tube) to the belly of the rover, where it goes through a complex sequence of sample assessment, imaging, hermetic sealing, and eventual storage.

8. Wrap up our scientific observations at the sampling location including analysis of the newly drilled borehole.

9. Drive away from our sampling site, one core sample heavier.

The sampling sol path is all about efficiency. There are a lot of activities crammed into the sol path, and the goal is to organize the path into a logical sequence that maximizes rover resources. The sol path also enables us to acquire a standard and comparable set of scientific observations so that we can consistently document each sample that we collect. Last week, our arrival at Citadelle marked the initiation of our sampling sol path. At the time of this writing, we’ve successfully created an abrasion patch on our intended rock target “Rochette,” seen in the image above. We’re well on our way towards sampling, and if all goes well over the next few sols, we’ll proceed with sample coring. Go Perseverance!

Written by Rachel Kronyak, Systems Engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory

A key objective for Perseverance’s mission on Mars is astrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will characterize the planet’s geology and past climate, pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet, and be the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith (broken rock and dust).

Subsequent NASA missions, in cooperation with ESA (European Space Agency), would send spacecraft to Mars to collect these sealed samples from the surface and return them to Earth for in-depth analysis.

The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission is part of NASA’s Moon to Mars exploration approach, which includes Artemis missions to the Moon that will help prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is managed for the agency by Caltech in Pasadena, California, built and manages operations of the Perseverance rover.

Other panoramas of Mars by Perseverance rover:

• http://www.360cities.net/sets/perseverance-mars