After seven months of travel, NASA's Perseverance rover will attempt to land on Mars.
The maneuver, ultra-perilous, will mark the beginning of a quest of several years in "the search for samples which could show us traces of old life" explains Jennifer Trosper, one of the persons in charge of the mission.
The tubes will then be kept until a later mission is able to return to pick them up, around the 2030s.
“We have not yet managed to leave Mars.
The next step, and this mission will help us get there, is to be able to bring back the samples.
Once you know how to do that, then you can work on technologies to bring humans back.
It's a huge step for the Mars program, I can't wait, ”continues Jenifer Trosper.
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Another objective of the mission will be to succeed in making a motorized vehicle fly above Martian soil for the first time.
Another objective is to prepare for future human missions, by experiencing the production of oxygen directly on site.