NASA reports that the rover stopped temporarily storing samples after debris partially blocked the bit carousel (the device that stores drill bits and passes sample tubes for internal processing).
The rover encountered the anomaly on December 29, but the mission team had to wait until January 6 to send a command to extract the drill bit, disengage the robot arm from the carousel and take photos to verify what had happened, according to an engadged report. The obstructions are believed to be gravel that fell from the sample tube when the drill bit was dropped, preventing that portion from sitting tidy in the carousel, and storage is critical to NASA’s plans to eventually return the samples to Earth.
And that’s not the end of sample collection. Luis Gandora, NASA’s chief sampling engineer at JPL, notes that the carousel is designed to run with debris and this is the first time the team has had to remove debris, however Gandora said operators will take the time they need. To get rid of gravel “in an orderly and orderly manner”.
This is not the first time that persistence has had a problem, the rover failed to collect samples on its first attempt, and the Ibdaa helicopter experienced a processing error on its sixth flight, however this illustrates the challenges of the task – even a seemingly task like storing a sample can They go awry in the wrong conditions, and when Mars is too far away the fixes aren’t necessarily easy or certain.
I recently captured the 6th rock core and faced a new challenge, some pebble size debris seemed to be obstructing my robotic arms from delivering the tube for closure/storage.
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