The largest and most advanced rover that humans have sent to another world landed on Mars on Thursday, after a 203-day journey that spanned 472 million kilometers, as published by NASA. Confirmation of the successful landing was announced at mission control at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California at 9:55 p.m. PST. In addition, he has already sent his first photograph to Earth.
Equipped with innovative technology, the Mars 2020 mission launched on July 30, 2020 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The Perseverance rover mission marks an ambitious first step in the effort to collect samples from Mars and return them to Earth.
About the size of a car, the 1,026 kilogram robotic ‘geologist’ and ‘astrobiologist’ will undergo several weeks of testing before beginning his two-year scientific investigation of the Jezero crater on Mars. While the rover will investigate the rock and sediments of the ancient lake bed and delta of the Jezero River to characterize the geology and past climate of the region, a critical part of its mission is astrobiology, including looking for signs of microbial life. ancient. At nearly 50 kilometers wide, the Jezero Crater sits on the western edge of Isidis Planitia, a giant impact basin just north of the Martian equator. Scientists have determined that 3.5 billion years ago the crater had its own river delta and was filled with water.
Equipped with seven primary science instruments, the most cameras ever sent to Mars, and its exquisitely complex sample caching system, the first of its kind sent into space, Perseverance will scour the Jezero region in search of fossilized remains of ancient microscopic Martian life .
On the surface of Mars, Perseverance’s science instruments will have a chance to shine scientifically. Mastcam-Z is a pair of Perseverance remote sensing mast zoom science cameras that create high resolution color 3D panoramas of the Martian landscape. Also located on the mast, the SuperCam uses a pulsed laser to study the chemistry of rocks and sediments and has its own microphone to help scientists better understand the properties of rocks, including their hardness.
“This landing is one of those pivotal moments for NASA, the United States, and global space exploration, when we know we are on the cusp of discovery and sharpen our pencils, so to speak, to rewrite textbooks.” according to the acting NASA administrator. Steve Jurczyk. “The Perseverance of Mars 2020 mission embodies our nation’s spirit of perseverance in even the most challenging situations, inspiring and advancing science and exploration. The mission itself embodies the human ideal of persevering into the future and will help us prepare for the human exploration of the Red Planet. “
Project engineers and scientists will now put Perseverance to the test, testing each instrument, subsystem and subroutine over the next month. Only then will they deploy the helicopter to the surface for the flight test phase. If successful, Ingenuity could add an aerial dimension to the exploration of the red planet in which such helicopters serve as scouts or make deliveries for future astronauts far from their base.
Once the Ingenuity test flights are complete, the rover’s search for evidence of ancient microbial life will begin in earnest.
