![\"NASA\u2019s](\"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/side_image\/public\/thumbnails\/image\/1-pia25652-stretched-800.jpg?itok=IeUZ7Coo\")
Perseverance has been taking duplicate samples from rock targets the mission selects. The rover currently has the other\u00a017 samples\u00a0(including one atmospheric sample) taken so far in its belly. Based on the architecture of the Mars Sample Return campaign, the rover would deliver samples to a future robotic lander. The lander would, in turn, use a robotic arm to place the samples in a containment capsule aboard a small rocket that would blast off to Mars orbit, where another spacecraft would capture the sample container and return it safely to Earth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The depot will serve as a backup if Perseverance can\u2019t deliver its samples. In that case, a pair of Sample Recovery Helicopters would be called upon to finish the job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The first sample to drop was a chalk-size core of\u00a0igneous rock\u00a0informally named \u201cMalay,\u201d which was collected on Jan. 31, 2022, in a region of Mars\u2019 Jezero Crater called \u201cSouth S\u00e9\u00edtah.\u201d Perseverance\u2019s complex\u00a0Sampling and Caching System\u00a0took almost an hour to retrieve the metal tube from inside the rover\u2019s belly, view it one last time with its internal\u00a0CacheCam, and drop the sample roughly 3 feet (89 centimeters) onto a carefully selected patch of Martian surface.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the job wasn\u2019t done for engineers at NASA\u2019s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, which built Perseverance and leads the mission. Once they confirmed the tube had dropped, the team positioned the\u00a0WATSON\u00a0camera located at the end of Perseverance\u2019s 7-foot-long (2-meter-long) robotic arm to peer beneath the rover, checking to be sure that the tube hadn\u2019t rolled into the path of the rover\u2019s wheels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n