Image: Mars Sample Depot at 3 forks

Description: Establishment of the initial depot will be preceded by a Science Team workshop to review caching plans. The open Mars 2020/MSR Sample Depot Science Community Workshop will solicit input from the science community on the potential for the samples in this proposed depot to meet MSR’s science objectives. With a depot of scientifically exciting samples on the surface of Mars and another cached on the rover, two pathways to get samples to the lander exist. Working with the Mars 2020 Project to plan for initial surface depot • Work in progress to certify the “Three Forks” area in Jezero Crater as the location for an initial cache depot and potential Sample Retrieval Lander landing site • Science and operations teams are preparing to deposit one set of the collected sample core pairs at Three Forks as early as November • The initial depot is intended to be a risk mitigation against possible Perseverance catastrophic failure or major degradation (e.g., loss of mobility, loss of ability to drop tubes). • Initial cache must be scientifically return-worthy (SRW) – Science community workshop scheduled for September 28th & 30th to help establish what constitutes a scientifically return-worthy sample cache – Anticipated to be 10-11 sample tubes containing core samples, regolith, atmosphere, witness tube(s) – From each core sample pair, one sample will be placed in the initial depot, and the other sample will be retained onboard Perseverance • After placement of the initial depot, Perseverance will discontinue paired sampling and retain all acquired samples onboard until delivery to the Sample Retrieval Lander (SRL) • In the event of a degradation in Perseverance’s state of health that threatens the ability to directly

deliver samples to SRL, establishment of a second surface depot would be considered
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