NASA's Perseverance FAILS to collect its first Mars samples

NASA has been waiting six months for Perseverance to collect its inaugural Mars core samples, but the American space Agency will have to wait a little longer after the rover failed during its first attempt. The percussive drill, coring bit and sample tube processing all worked'as intended, but data shows the sample tube was empty following extraction. The rover carries 43 titanium sample tubes, and is exploring Jezero Crater, where it will be gathering samples of rock and regolith (broken rock and dust) for future analysis on Earth. NASA scientists are currently analyzing the data with the hopes of finding the blunder and hopes to have a better understanding of what may occurred in the next few weeks. Jennifer Trosper, project manager for Perseverance at JPL, said in a statement: 'The initial thinking is that the empty tube is more likely a result of the rock target not reacting the way we expected during coring, and less likely a hardware issue with the Sampling and Caching System.