NASA’s Perseverance Rover 22 Days Before Mars Landing – NASA’s Mars Exploration Program

---

Seven minutes of heart-wrenching descent to the Red Planet is in the not-so-distant future for the agency’s Mars 2020 mission.

---

NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover mission is just 22 days away from landing on the surface of Mars. The spacecraft has approximately 25.6 million miles (41.2 million kilometers) remaining in its 292.5 million mile (470.8 million kilometers) journey and currently closes that distance at 1.6 miles per second (2.5 kilometers per second). Once atop the Red Planet’s atmosphere, a seven-minute action-packed descent awaits – complete with equivalent sun surface temperatures, supersonic parachute inflation, and the first-ever Autonomous Guided Landing on Mars.

Only then will the rover – the largest, heaviest, cleanest, and most sophisticated six-wheeled robotic geologist ever to launch into space – will be able to search Jezero Crater for signs of life. old and collect samples that will eventually be returned to Earth.

“NASA has been exploring Mars since Mariner 4 conducted an overflight in July 1965, with two more overflights, seven successful orbiters and eight landers since then,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Missions Directorate at headquarters. of the agency in Washington. . “Perseverance, which was built from the collective knowledge gleaned from these pioneers, has the opportunity not only to expand our knowledge of the Red Planet, but also to investigate one of the most important questions and fascinating stories about the origin of life on Earth. and also on other planets. “

Jezero Crater is the perfect place to look for signs of ancient microbial life. Billions of years ago, the now dry 28-mile-wide (45-kilometer-wide) basin was home to an actively forming river delta and a water-filled lake. The rock and regolith (broken rock and dust) that the Perseverance sample caching system collects from Jezero could help answer fundamental questions about the existence of life beyond Earth. Two future missions currently being planned by NASA, in collaboration with ESA (European Space Agency), will work together to bring the samples back to Earth, where they will undergo in-depth analysis by scientists around the world using far too much equipment. voluminous. and complex to send to the red planet.

“Perseverance’s sophisticated scientific instruments will not only aid in the hunt for fossilized microbial life, but will also expand our knowledge of Martian geology and its past, present and future,” said Ken Farley, project scientist for March 2020, of Caltech in Pasadena, California. “Our science team has been very busy planning the best way to work with what we expect to be a leading data source. This is the kind of “problem” we look forward to. ”

Test future technology

While most of Perseverance’s seven science instruments aim to learn more about the geology and astrobiology of the planet, the mission also features technology more focused on the future exploration of Mars. MOXIE (Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment), a device the size of a car battery in the rover’s chassis, is designed to demonstrate that the conversion of Martian carbon dioxide into oxygen is possible. Future applications of the technology could produce the enormous amounts of oxygen that astronauts would need to return to Earth and, of course, oxygen could also be used for breathing.

The terrain navigation system helps the rover avoid dangers. The MEDLI2 (Mars Entry, Descent, and Landing Instrumentation 2) sensor suite collects data while traveling through the Martian atmosphere. Together, the systems will help engineers design future human missions that can land more safely and with larger payloads on other worlds.

Another technological demonstration, the Ingenuity Mars helicopter, is attached to the belly of the rover. Between 30 and 90 days after the start of the rover’s mission, Ingenuity will be deployed to attempt the first experimental flight test on another planet. If this initial flight is successful, Ingenuity will fly up to four more times. The data acquired during these tests will allow the next generation of Martian helicopters to give an aerial dimension to the exploration of Mars.

Preparing for the Red Planet

Like people around the world, members of the March 2020 team have had to make significant changes to their approach to working during the COVID-19 pandemic. While the majority of the team members performed their work via telecommuting, some tasks required an in-person presence at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which built the rover for the agency and manages the mission. This was the case last week when the team that will be on console at JPL during the landing performed a full three-day COVID-tailored simulation of the upcoming Mars landing on February 18.

“Don’t let anyone tell you different – landing on Mars is hard to do,” John McNamee, project manager for the Perseverance Mars 2020 rover mission told JPL. “But the women and men on this team are the best in the world at what they do. When our spacecraft reaches the top of Mars’ atmosphere at about three and a half miles per second, we’ll be ready.

There is less than a month of ruthless dark interplanetary space left before landing. NASA Television and the agency’s website will broadcast live coverage of the event from JPL starting at 11:15 a.m. PST (2:15 p.m. EST).

Learn more about the mission

A key focus of Perseverance’s mission to Mars is astrobiology, including looking for signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will characterize the planet’s geology and past climate, pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet, and be the first mission to collect and hide Martian rock and regolith.

Subsequent missions, currently under study by NASA in cooperation with ESA (European Space Agency), would send spacecraft to Mars to collect these sealed samples on the surface and return them to Earth for further analysis.

The Mars 2020 mission is part of a larger program that includes missions to the Moon in preparation for human exploration of the Red Planet. Tasked with bringing astronauts back to the moon by 2024, NASA will establish a sustained human presence on and around the moon by 2028 through NASA’s Artemis lunar exploration plans.

JPL, which is managed for NASA by Caltech in Pasadena, Calif., Built and manages the operations of the Perseverance rover.

To learn more about perseverance:

mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/

nasa.gov/perseverance

For more information on NASA’s Mars missions, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov/mars

Media contacts
DC Agle
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California.
818-393-9011
[email protected]

Gray Gravestone / Alana Johnson
NASA Headquarters, Washington
202-358-0668 / 202-358-1501
[email protected] / [email protected]