Both the European Space Agency (ESA) and the NASA have teamed up to start bringing samples of Marte to our planet, something previously criticized for the possibility of contamination given that live microorganisms could end up being present in these samples.
Be that as it may, specifically the European Space Agency will make use of a unique robotic arm to bring samples from Mars to Earth as announced in their statement: “The mission to return Martian samples to Earth will make a robotic arm 2.5-meter-long European scoop up tubes filled with precious soil from Mars and transfer it to a rocket for a historic interplanetary delivery.”
This arm, known in English as the Sample Transfer Arm or STA, is described as “an autonomous, highly reliable and robust robot” which makes it ideal for this mission of its kind: “The robot can perform a wide range of movements with seven degrees of freedom, assisted by two cameras and a myriad of sensors. It has a gripper, similar to a hand, that can capture and manipulate sample tubes at different angles.
It should be noted that this robotic arm is not yet in operation, but it will soon be on the red planet to recover the sample tubes that NASA’s Perseverance Rover is collecting from the surface.
“Its high level of dexterity allows the arm to extract the tubes from the Rover, pick them up from the Martian soil, insert them into a container and close the lid before leaving Mars,” explains the European agency.
They try to find out if there was ever life on Mars
NASA is making a big effort to find out if life ever existed on Mars, an effort that is being supported through the collection of several samples that will be sent back to Earth for study.
Specifically, ESA’s Earth Return Orbiter (ERO) will join the new robot to collect the containers full of samples from Mars and bring the material back to Earth.
The agencies hope that the samples these robots collect will contain ancient fossilized organisms, and there would be a slim chance that the samples could also contain living organisms.
In any case, the agencies seem to want to take risks regarding the possible contaminations that we do on Mars or that are done on Earth, to continue advancing space exploration.
