CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) – NASA’s latest Mars rover hit the dusty road this week and put 21 meters on the odometer in its first test drive.
The Perseverance Rover on Thursday, two weeks after crashing on the red planet, ventured from its landing position to look for signs of past life.
The round trip took only 33 minutes and went so well that more driving was on tap for the six-wheeled robber on Friday and Saturday.
“This is really the beginning of our journey here,” said Rich Rieber, the NASA engineer who planned the route. “It’s going to be like the Odyssey, road adventures, hopefully no Cyclops, and I’m sure enough stories will be written about it.”
In the first ride, Perseverance went 13 feet forward, a 150-degree turn left and then backed 8 feet. During a news conference Friday, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, shared photos of its tracks over and around small rocks.
“I do not think I have ever been happier to see wheel tracks and I have seen a lot of them,” said engineer Anais Zarifian.
Flight controllers still control all Perseverance systems. So far, so good. The robot’s 7-foot robot arm, for example, bulged its muscles for the first time on Tuesday.
Before the car robber can go to an ancient river delta to collect rocks for eventual return to Earth, he must drop his so-called protective “belly pan” and release an experimental helicopter called Ingenuity.
As it turns out, perseverance landed right on the edge of a potential helicopter landing strip – a nice, flat spot, according to Rieber. So the plan is to drive out of this runway, toss the pan and then return to Ingenuity’s highly anticipated test flight. All this must be achieved in late spring.
Scientists are discussing whether they should take the smoother route to go to the nearby delta or a stricter way with intriguing remains from the once watery time of 3 to 4 billion years ago.
Perseverance – NASA’s largest and most extensive rover to date – became the ninth US spacecraft to successfully land on Mars on 18 February. China hopes to land its smaller rover in a few months’ time – which is currently orbiting the red planet.
Meanwhile, NASA scientists announced Friday that they have named Perseverance’s touch site in honor of the late science fiction writer Octavia E. Butler, who grew up next to JPL in Pasadena. She was one of the first African-Americans to receive major attention for science fiction. Her works have included ‘Blood Child and Other Stories’ and ‘Parable of the Sower’.
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