NASA plunged strong Mars sample-return gear right into a U.S. desert

NASA is prepping for an bold extraterrestrial mission.

In live performance with the European House Company, NASA plans to launch rock samples from Mars (at present being collected by the Perseverance rover) and ship them to Earth, an endeavor aptly named the “Mars Pattern Return Marketing campaign.” The U.S. house company not too long ago examined a sturdy “aeroshell” that would at some point drop to the desert ground with the valuable Martian cargo.

Within the video above, a helicopter drops the shell (aka a “Manufacturing Demonstration Unit,” or MDU) from 1,200 toes above the Utah Check and Coaching Vary, a army web site. It pummels into the bottom with out breaking up, which was the plan.

“The MDU was very secure throughout descent — it didn’t wobble round quite a bit, and it landed efficiently, within the sense that there was no structural injury and it survived influence as anticipated,” Jim Corliss, a Mars Pattern Return chief engineer, mentioned in a press release.

NASA hopes to return the valuable Martian samples to the Utah desert, collected in tubes by the Perseverance rover, within the early 2030s.