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CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (AP) – NASAThe newest Mars rover has successfully collected the first rock sample to return to Earth after last month’s attempt failed.
NS Patience Adam Stelzner, the rover’s chief engineer, described it as an excellent core example.
“I’ve never been happier to see a hole in a rock,” he tweeted on Thursday.
A month ago, Patience drilled into much softer rock and the sample crumbled and the titanium did not penetrate the tube. The rover traveled half a mile to a better sampling point to try again. Team members analyzed data and images before declaring success.
Patience He arrived in Mars’ Jezero Crater, believed to have been home to a lush lake bed and river delta billions of years ago, in February in search of rocks that could hold evidence of ancient life. NASA It plans to launch more spacecraft to retrieve samples collected by Patience; engineers hope to bring back as many as three dozen samples in about a decade.
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