NASA Sees ‘Otherworldly’ Wreckage on Mars With Ingenuity Helicopter

Studying the remains of the backshell could prove helpful for NASA’s next big Mars adventure — bringing back rocks and soil travel from Mars to Earth for more detailed study. That mission, called Mars Sample Return, will need to put two landers on the surface — a rover to collect rock samples being drilled by Perseverance, and a small rocket to launch the samples into orbit for another spacecraft to pick up to bring back to Earth.
“We use all of our best models, all of our best analysis tools,” Mr. Clark said. The images help verify how well the models and analysis worked, adding confidence to the models in the future.
Kenneth Farley, the mission’s project scientist, was fascinated not just by the “truly spectacular” images of the hardware but also what the hardware happened to land on.
“Remarkably, this wreckage wound up right on the contact between the two rock formations on the crater floor,” Dr. Farley said in an email. The two formations, named Seitah and Maaz, both consist of volcanic rocks. But they are very different in composition. Seitah is rich in olivine that settled out of thick magma, perhaps a lava lake. Maaz, which is on top and thus probably younger, has a composition similar to most basaltic lava flows — full of minerals known as pyroxene and plagioclase but with little or no olivine. The two formations meet at a line of rocks that runs from the backshell to an area just next to the parachute. “We want to know how these rocks may be related to each other,” Dr. Farley said.
The mission’s scientists were so intrigued by the geology that Ingenuity made another pass over the dividing line between Seitah and Maaz on Sunday. Those pictures will be sent back to Earth on Thursday.