CAPE CANAVERAL: On Monday, Nasa released the first video of a spacecraft on Mars, a three-minute trailer that rolls open the enormous orange and white parachute and shoots up the red dust as rocket motors lower the rover to the surface.
The footage was so good and the images so breathtaking that members of the robber team said they felt like they were riding together.
It gives me goosebumps every time I see it, just amazing, said Dave Gruel, head of the camera team for entry and descent.
The Perseverance Rover landed near an ancient river delta in the Jezero crater last Thursday to search for signs of ancient microscopic life. After watching the descent and landing video binge over the weekend, the team at Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, shared the video at a news conference.
These videos and these images are the things of our dreams, ”said Al Chen, who was in charge of the landing team.
Six color cameras off the shelf are dedicated to access, descent and landing, and look up and down from different perspectives. Everyone except one camera worked. The stand-alone microphone turned on for landing failed, but Nasa made a few noises after touching: the roar of the Rovers systems and gusts of wind.
Flight controllers were delighted with the thousands of images radiated back and also with the remarkably good condition of Nasa’s largest and most capable robber yet. It will spend the next two years exploring the dry river delta and drilling it into rocks that may have survived for life 3 to 4 billion years ago. The nuclear monsters are set aside for a decade to return to Earth.
Nasa added 25 cameras to the $ 3 billion mission, most of which were sent to Mars. The space agency’s previous agent, Curiosity of 2012, worked only jerky, grainy stopping motions, mostly terrain. Curiosity still works. So does Nasa’s InSight lander, although it is obstructed by dusty solar panels.
They will likely have company in late spring, when China tries to land its own rover, which orbits Mars two weeks ago.
Deputy project manager Matt Wallace said he was inspired several years ago to film Perseverance’s disturbing descent when his young gymnast daughter carried a camera while she was having a setback.
Some spacecraft systems, such as the airplane used to lower the rover to the Martian surface, could not be tested on Earth.
So this is the first time we as engineers get a chance to see what we have designed, Wallace told reporters.
Thomas Zurbuchen, head of scientific mission at Nasa, said that the video and also the panoramic view after touch is the closest to landing on Mars without putting on a pressure suit.
According to the engineers, Nasa will help them prepare for spaceflight flights to Mars in the coming decades. There is a more immediate benefit.
I know it’s been a tough year for everyone, said visual artist Justin Maki, and we hope these images might help brighten people’s days.
Published in Dawn, February 24, 2021