The Perseverance self-driving rover drilled into a rock called Issole on December 29, 2021, collecting the sixth sample since it made landfall inside Mars' Jezero cluster last February. However, Perseverance could not close the sample container as planned, the reason was that a few small stones clogged the sample processing system.
Perseverance then "puts" the stuck rocks into the ground to continue the sample collection mission. Fortunately, the sample container can be reused to hold other samples from the same rock.
The mission team wrote on Perseverance's official Twitter account on January 31, "Fortunately, I was able to collect other samples here to replace the one I had previously removed. This could be one of the oldest rocks I have sampled, so it could help us understand the history of this place.
Collecting stone models is one of Perseverance's two main goals, along with searching for signs of life on Mars. The samples will be sent back to Earth, as early as 2031, in a joint campaign between the European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA.
