CAP CANAVERAL, Fla. – With 8 successful landings on Mars, NASA is increasing bets with its new rover.
The Perseverance spacecraft, expected to take off this week, is NASA’s smartest Mars rover to date.
It features lacheck touchdown technology, as well as as the largest number of cameras and microphones ever assembled to capture photographs and sounds from Mars. Its ultra-disinfected pattern returns to tubes, for rocks that can involve evidence of life beyond Mars, they are the cleanest elements ever connected to space. A helicopter is even following a control flight from the world.
This summer’s third and final project to Mars, after the United Arab Emirates’ Hope orbiter and the Quest for Heavenly Truth orbiter combo in China, begins with a launch scheduled for Thursday morning from Cape Canaveral. Like other spacecraft, Perseverance is expected to succeed on the Red Planet next February after a seven-month, more than three-million-mile (480 million-kilometer) adventure.
NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine doesn’t see it as a competition. “But we actually welcome more explorers to provide more science than ever before,” he said after a review of the post Monday, “and we can’t wait to see what they can discover.”
Here’s a look at perseverance:
PERSEVERANCE VS. Curiosity:
The six-wheeled perseverance of a car’s length is a copy of NASA’s Curiosity rover, which has been lurking on Mars since 2012, but with more improvements and volume. Its 7-foot (2-meter) robotic arm has a more powerful grip and a larger drill to collect rock samples, and is equipped with 23 cameras, usually in color, plus two more in Ingenuity, the hitchhiking helicopter. The cameras will provide the first glimpse of a parachute emerging on Mars, with two microphones that will allow Earthlings to pay attention for the first time. The Jezero crater, once home to a river delta and lake, is NASA’s riskiestiest Martian landing site due to rocks and cliffs, which are avoided through the spacecraft’s automatic navigation systems. Perseverance also has more self-driving skills, so it can cover more floor than Curiosity. Updates allow for a higher project price: almost $3 billion.
SAMPLE COLLECTION:
Perseverance will dig into the rocks to the fullest, probably to involve symptoms of ancient life and hide the meeting on the ground to expect a long-lasting rover. Forty-three pattern tubes are aboard this rover, each carefully cleaned and cooked to eliminate terrestrial microbes. NASA should avoid the introduction of Earth’s biological molecules into Martian patterns. Each tube may contain part of one ounce (15 grams) of central patterns, and the purpose is to collect about one pound (0.5 kilograms) in total to return to Earth. NASA hopes to launch the pickup project in 2026 and patterns from Earth to 2031, at the earliest.
HELICOPTER DEMO:
Ingenuity’ 4-pound (1.8 kilogram) helicopter will travel to Mars, squeezing the rover’s belly, and a few months after landing, will try to fly alone. Once it falls on the Martian surface, Ingenuity will begin as a birdie, emerge 3 meters into the planet’s incredibly thin environment and fly forward up to 2 meters (6 feet). With each attempt, he’ll try to pass a little higher and further. “It’s really like the Wright brothers’ time,” said assignment manager MiMi Aung. You have a month to make as many helicopter jumps as possible before the rover goes on to more urgent geological work. In the long run, next-generation helicopters may explore remote Martian territory in search of astronauts or even robots.
HUMAN BENEFITS:
In addition to the helicopter, Perseverance is conducting other experiments that can gain direct advantages from astronauts on Mars. A car battery length tool will turn the car’s atmospheric carbon dioxide into oxygen, an essential element for rocket propellants and breathing systems. Another tool, zapping rocks with lasers to identify biological and mineral molecules, material samples from automotive area suits. NASA needs to see how tissues deal with the harsh Martian environment. It will be at most the 2030s, according to NASA, before astronauts venture to Mars.
FRESH STOWAWAYS:
Some Martian meteorites, however, have returned home, or at least fragments of them to be used as calibration targets using laser firing tools aboard the Perseverance. Other large stowaways: silicon chips with the names of nearly 11 million people that have been registered, as well as a small plaque appearing on Earth and Mars on opposite sides of the sun with the message “explore as one” in Morse code located in the sun’s rays. There is also a plaque in honor of medical staff on the front line of the pandemic. The coronavirus prevents many scientists and other team members from traveling to Cape Canaveral for launch.
Gannett (c) USA TODAY NETWORK
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