NASA’s Perseverance Rover is only a few days away from its daring seven-minute landing on Mars, where it will hit the most challenging terrain ever targeted by a Red Planet mission.
On February 18, the car’s perseverance – the heart of NASA’s Mars 2020 mission – will attempt to land inside the 28-mile (45-kilometer) Jezero crater. The entry, descent and landing (EDL) phase of a Mars mission is often referred to as ‘seven minutes of terror’ because the series is so disturbing and happens faster than radio signals can reach Earth from Mars. That means the spacecraft is on its own as soon as it enters the Martian atmosphere – and a gripping new video from NASA shows how the rover will achieve such an amazing performance.
“Space always has a way of throwing curveballs at us and surprising us,” said Swati Mohan, Mars 2020 guidance, navigation and control operations at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California, says in the video. “There are a lot of things that need to go right to get Perseverance safely on the ground.”
Pictured: NASA’s Mars Perseverance Rover mission to the Red Planet
The EDL phase begins when the spacecraft reaches the top of Mars’ atmosphere and ends with a rocket-propelled aerial crane that drops Perseverance safely to the surface of the Red Planet. The entire EDL series lasts about seven minutes, during which very important steps must take place. The input is very high on Thursday for March 2020, which will be looking for signs of ancient life and collecting monsters for the first of mankind interplanetary monster-back campaign.
“A lot of this is being reckoned with,” Al Chen of JPL, March 2020’s entry, descent and landing lead, said in the video. “This is the first leg of our monster relay race – there is a lot of work on the track.”
Shortly before reaching the Red Planet, Perseverance will shake off its cruise stage, which has helped the Rover fly to Mars for the past 6.5 months. The next big milestone is atmospheric entry, when the rover will take in about 12,100 km / h (19,500 km / h) in the air of Mars.
The vehicle is equipped with a heat shield that will protect the car from the intense heat generated during the first descent, and also help to slow down the spacecraft. About 11 kilometers above the surface, the spacecraft will use its 70.5 feet wide (21.5 meters). supersonic parachute – the largest ever sent to another planet, according to the video.
Shortly afterwards, the heat shield will separate from the spacecraft and fall away, exposing for the first time throughput capability to the Martian atmosphere and launching the vehicle’s terrain-relative navigation system, which is a new autopilot technology that will help the lead car to a safe landing on Mars.
“Perseverance will be the first mission to use Terrain-Relative Navigation,” Mohan says in the video. “While descending on the parachute, it will actually take the surface of Mars and determine where to go based on what it sees. It’s ultimately like landing with open eyes – with this new technology, your perseverance can really land in. much more challenging terrain than Curiosity, or any previous Mars mission, could have done. ‘
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Perseverance’s EDL sequence is very similar to that of NASA’s Curiosity, which landed in 2012. Perseverance, however, is slightly greater and equipped with more advanced scientific tools, including new technology that will help guide the spacecraft through the difficult landing.
Scientists believe that a lake 250 meters deep (250 m) was filled Jezero Crater about 3.9 billion to 3.5 billion years ago. The area also has a prominent river delta, where water once flowed through and deposited a lot of sediment. Although this landing area offers geologically rich terrain, the rocks, craters and cliffs make it a very challenging place for endurance to land.
“The science team has identified the Jezero crater as an ancient lakebed and one of the most promising places to search for evidence of ancient microbial life and collect samples for future returns to Earth,” said Matt Smith, JPL, flight director of March 2020 operations, says in the video. “The problem is that it’s a much more dangerous place to land.”
During the last minute before endurance lands on the Red Planet, the mission is sky crane downhill stage will shoot up eight retro rockets, or Mars landing engines. Then the crane will lower the rover safely with three nylon cables to the ground. Once the robber lands, he will cut the cables that connect it to the descent stage, which will then fly and land safely from Perseverance.
“The seven-minute survival is really just the beginning for perseverance,” Chen says in the video. “The task – the first leg of the return of monsters; to search for the signs of past life on Mars – everything that can begin before we get Perseverance safely on the ground, and then the real mission begins.”
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