The helicopter companion Ingenuity is in the background.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSSIt has been a year since a nuclear-powered, one-armed, six-wheeled robot punched through the Martian atmosphere at a blazing 12,000 miles per hour and a supersonic parachute slowed it down.
The Perseverance rover was too far away for engineers on Earth to control it in real time, which meant that the spacecraft had to execute that daredevil maneuver all by itself. The robot's handler on Earth had to wait for confirmation that the robot had touched down safely.
It is a nail-biting experience, according to Perseverance's deputy project manager.
One day, the milestone that the car-sized rover has hit in the year since then could be more significant.
It is the first time that a NASA robot has been used to look for evidence of life on a red planet. It is the beginning of a new chapter in the exploration of Mars, one that searches for ancient signs of Martians, and lays the groundwork to send samples of Mars rocks and dirt back to Earth.
One of the main objectives of the mission is to collect samples of rocks and dirt on the surface of Mars so that a future mission could pick them up and bring them back to Earth to study. A rock-blasting laser, cameras and spectrometers are among the scientific instruments on the rover.
Even though a robot geologist is advanced, it can only do so much. Scientists want to get pieces of the planet back to their labs.
It is the main reason for wanting to collect and return samples.
The first NASA rover was sent to search for signs of ancient life. NASA sent a pair of landers to Mars in 1965, marking the first successful landing on the planet. The Viking mission was launched in 1975 to look for current life on Mars.
The results from the Viking Landers were ambiguous and taught us that we needed to better understand the surface of Mars.
Mars follow-up missions looked to see if the planet was even possible to live on. They focused on looking for signs of ancient water, which is a key to life on Earth. Perseverance began searching for ancient microbes in the rocks and dirt on Mars after the launch of rovers like Spirit and Opportunity.
The Jezero crater is where Perseverance is searching. The scientists think this was an ancient lake that was fed by the rivers on Mars. At the edge of the crater, the rover is making a beeline towards a river.
Amy Williams is an astronomer at the University of Florida and a scientist on the mission. The assumption is that life on Mars would need water as a universal solvent, much like life here on Earth.
Scientists expect to find layers and layers of rich geological history trapped in the sediment, a prime spot for drilling samples which might have trapped evidence of past Martian life.
It would require extraordinary evidence to confirm ancient life on another planet.
The only way to be sure that we found evidence for life on Mars is to get samples back.
The rover has begun to collect bits of Martian rock. In its first year, it has collected and stashed 6 samples, with the chance to collect up to 40.
NASA and the European Space Agency are working together to develop a mission to collect samples from the surface of Mars and return them to Earth.
It is an incredibly complex mission and there are funding and technical challenges ahead.
The Mars ascent vehicle will be the first rocket to launch a payload off of another planet. The architecture of the mission is still being worked on.
We are working to get those samples back here as soon as possible.
In 2031, scientists could have their hands on Martian rocks.
While scientists wait for Perseverance to collect Martian samples, the mission is breaking ground in other ways. Nineteen successful flights on the surface of Mars have been completed by a tiny helicopter stowed away on the rover. The proof of concept that engineers could design an aircraft that could fly in Mars is now helping the rover find new places to explore.
The helicopter is able to fly over areas that are too rugged for the rover to traverse. We are able to see these high-resolution images in areas the rover can't actually reach.
The key target for Perseverance is a geologically-rich river delta where scientists hope to peel back layers of Martian history written in the rocks by ancient water. Over the next several months, Perseverance will make its way there, with Ingenuity hopping along ahead to scope out the path.
All good things must end. The parts on the tiny aircraft will eventually give out and the team will miss them.
The rover is helping plan for future human missions to Mars, like taking fabric samples that could one day be used for Mars-bound astronauts suits, and exposing them to the planet's harsh atmosphere. The atmosphere is being converted into oxygen that could be used for fuel or for life support, pure enough to breathe.
Stunning images of its new home on Mars are being sent back by Perseverance as it makes its way towards the river delta of Jezero crater.
The valley is similar to Monument Valley on Mars, says a planetary scientist on the mission. It is fantastic.
Perseverance is putting a lot of ground under its six wheels thanks to rugged new tires and a self-driving computer. At least for a robot, the rover drives itself at blazing speeds.
It is possible to drive on the order of 200 meters a day, or 650 feet.
The state-of-the-art rover, which has traveled more than two miles already, will have plenty more exploring to do to catch up with its predecessors. Opportunity covered more than 28 miles before reaching its final resting place, Perseverance Valley.
All Rights Reserved © 2024
