Earthbound! NASA Rover deposits second rock sample for Mars Sample Return

tech.hindustantimes.com:

NASA's Perseverance Rover has now deposited its second rock sample, following the first which was deposited less than a week ago for NASA's Sample Return programme. Mars Sample Return is NASA's programme to bring important scientific samples back to Earth in a bid to study the red planet's conditions for potentially establishing a colony one day. NASA's Mars Sample Return programme is a series of missions to retrieve scientific samples of Mars collected by the Perseverance rover. One of the most ambitious space missions ever planned, the Mars Sample Return mission would allow scientists to study those samples using state-of-the-art technology here on Earth. Just days ago, the mission was kicked off with the first ever sample collected and deposited at the pickup location by NASA's Perseverance Rover on December 21. 

Now, another one has been deposited at the drop location.

Rick Welch, Perseverance's deputy project manager at JPL said in a NASA blog,” “Seeing our first sample on the ground is a great capstone to our prime mission period, which ends on Jan. 6. It's a nice alignment that, just as we're starting our cache, we're also closing this first chapter of the mission.”

NASA's Perseverance Rover has been collecting duplicate rock samples from rocks selected for this mission. The first sample, a core of an igneous rock, termed as “Malay” was collected from a region of Mars' Jezero Crater called “South Séítah on January 31 and deposited in a titanium test tube which currently rests on the surface of the Red Planet. Over the next two months, the rover will deposit a total of 10 tubes at the location termed as “Three Forks”.

A Sample Retrieval Lander would launch to Mars in 2028, carrying with it a NASA-led Mars rocket and a