How NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover will make the hardest landing ever on the Red Planet

Currently traversing space, less than 40 million kilometers from its destination, NASA’s Perseverance rover will soon make the most difficult landing ever attempted on Mars, before beginning its hunt for ancient life.

When it arrives on February 18th, Perseverance will enter Mars’ atmosphere at more than 12,000 miles per hour, traversing the Martian sky like a meteor for seven biting minutes before finally landing in Jezero Crater, a site the Curiosity rover was technologically unable to achieve.

NASA scientists call it the “seven minutes of terror. “

The rover must survive both intense heat comparable to the sun’s surface and deceleration on its descent, while trying to land in the right place. A 70 foot diameter parachute will help slow him down, as he tries to find his way to the crater.

Then a “skycrane”, which was also used by Curiosity, will allow Perseverance to sink to the surface. When the rover finally lands, it will touch its wheels at a slower speed than humans.

“I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say that entering, descending and landing (EDL) is the most critical and dangerous part of the mission,” said Allen Chen, the head of the mission. ‘EDL, this week at a press conference. “Success is never guaranteed, and that’s especially true when we’re trying to land the biggest, heaviest and most complicated rover we’ve ever built on the most dangerous site we’ve ever had. attempted to land. ”

And perseverance must do all of this alone. It takes more than 11 minutes for the radio signals to return to Earth, so all of the EDL will be done without the aid of mission control.

NASA chose the Crater lake as a landing site because scientists believe, based on orbital photographs of the area, that it was once filled with water, home to an ancient river delta. The water is long gone, but the lake bottom deposits make the crater a great place to look for signs of ancient life.

The crater is filled with steep cliffs, sand, rocks, and impact craters, which make landing more difficult. When Perseverance hits the ground, it must do so near the remains of the delta, where traces of microbial organisms may have been deposited.

“Jezero Crater is a great place, a great place for science. But when I look at it from a landing point of view, I see the danger,” Chen said. “It’s a great challenge.”

The Perseverance rover, which launched last july, is the largest vehicle NASA has ever attempted to land on Mars, weighing over a metric ton and carrying 50% more science and technology than Curiosity, which landed in 2012. Two new technologies will help Perseverance land safely – a range trigger, which lets the rover decide when to deploy the parachute and navigation relative to the terrain, essentially giving the rover eyes and a map, so he can check to make sure it lands in the right place.

“If it weren’t for the distance trigger and relative terrain navigation, we just couldn’t go to Jezero,” Chen said.

The coronavirus pandemic only further complicated the landing.

“We were hoping that the situation in our world regarding COVID had improved since its launch. It hasn’t, and that means we need to be flexible and adapt to continue working safely and efficiently.” , declared Thomas Zurbuchen, Managing Partner of the Scientific Missions Directorate. “Regardless of everything that has happened as a result of COVID, it is the constant innovation, dedication and above all the unity of this team that has allowed the work on the Perseverance rover to continue safely.”

Perseverance carries a ton of cool new tech, including a small helicopter named Ingenuity and the instruments needed to collect samples for future studies on Earth. For the first time, we’ll also be able to see and hear what it’s like to land on another planet, thanks to a new camera and microphone system.

These new, more precise EDL technologies will help enable human exploration of the red planet in the future, the scientists said.

NASA will broadcast the historic event live on its website on February 18, starting at 2:15 p.m. ET.