Bringing Mars rock samples back to Earth
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By European Space Agency
Video: 00:01:07 The mission to return martian samples back to Earth will see a European 2.5 metre-long robotic arm pick up tubes filled with precious soil from Mars and transfer them to a rocket for an historic interplanetary delivery.
The sophisticated robot, known as the Sample Transfer Arm or STA, will play a crucial role in the success of the Mars Sample Return campaign.
The Sample Transfer Arm is conceived to be autonomous, highly reliable and robust. The robot can perform a large range of movements with seven degrees of freedom, assisted by two cameras and a myriad of sensors. It features a gripper – akin to a hand – that can capture and handle the sample tubes at different angles.
The robotic arm will land on Mars to retrieve the sample tubes NASA’s Perseverance rover is currently collecting from the surface. Able to “see”, “feel” and take autonomous decisions, its high level of dexterity allows the arm to extract the tubes from the rover, pick them up from the martian ground, insert them into a container and close the lid before lifting-off from Mars.
ESA’s Earth Return Orbiter (ERO) will rendezvous with the container filled with martian samples and bring the material back to Earth.
The joint endeavour between NASA and ESA aims to bring back martian samples to the best labs in our planet by 2033.
Follow the latest news about Mars Sample Return on Twitter and read all about it on the blog To Mars and Back.
More about the Sample Transfer Arm
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By NASA
NASA and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) announced Tuesday a collaboration to demonstrate a nuclear thermal rocket engine in space, an enabling capability for NASA crewed missions to Mars.View the full article
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By NASA
NASA announced Thursday its new Mars Sample Receiving Project office, responsible for receiving and curating the first samples returned from the Red Planet, will be located at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. The safe and rapid release of Mars samples after they return to Earth to laboratories worldwide for science investigations willView the full article
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By USH
An in-depth analysis of Suspicious0bservers of what we may expect here on earth in the near future
Unprecedented astronomical events...
1. Changes on planets, stars and sun (1859-Now) 2. Solar killshot (Technological) - (2020s/2030s) 3. Weather, animals, the solar red and black (2030s) 4. Solar micronova event (2030s/2040s) 5. Shell impact, Arc discharge (within hours) 6. Whole planet electrical insult (within minutes) 7. Earth turns over, impactors, cold (begins immediately - lasts days/weeks)
Coincidental or not but the analysis of Suspicious0bservers is comparable with some of Baba Vanga's predictions, that a big astronomical event will occur as Earth's orbit will change and as a result of this event, it could have catastrophic consequences on Earth as well as the Earth will be hit by an unprecedented solar storm on a scale the world has never before seen.
Is a disaster unfolding?
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