Currently, traversing space, less than 25 million miles from its destination, NASA’s Perseverance rover will soon make the most difficult landing ever attempted on Mars, before it begins its search for ancient life.
When he arrives on February 18, Perseverance will enter Mars’ atmosphere at more than 12,000 miles per hour, traversing the Martian sky like a meteor for seven minutes biting its nails before finally touching Jezero Crater, a place that Rover of curiosity he was technologically unable to get there.
NASA scientists call it “seven minutes of terror. “
NASA / JPL-Caltech
The rover must survive both intense heat comparable to the surface of the sun and deceleration as it descends, while attempting to land in the right place. A 70-foot-diameter parachute will help slow it down as it tries to find its way to the crater.
Then a “skycrane”, which was also used by Curiosity, will allow perseverance to come down to the surface. When the rover finally lands, it will touch its wheels at a slower speed than humans.
“I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say that entry, descent and landing (EDL) is the most critical and dangerous part of the mission,” EDL leader Allen Chen said this week during a press conference . “Success is never assured, and this is especially true when we try to land the largest, heaviest and most complicated rover we have built to the most dangerous place we have tried to land.”
And perseverance has to do it all by itself. It takes more than 11 minutes of radio signals to return to Earth, so the entire EDL will be done without the help of mission control.
NASA / JPL-Caltech
NASA chose the Crater Lake as a landing site for scientists to believe, based on orbital photographs of the region, which was once filled with water, where an ancient river delta lived. The water has disappeared, but the bed deposits of the lake make the crater an ideal place to investigate for signs of ancient life.
The crater is full of steep cliffs, sand, pebbles and impact craters, which make landing difficult. When perseverance strikes, it should do so near the remains of the delta, where remnants of microbial organism may have settled.
“Jezero Crater is a fantastic place, a great place for science. But when I look at it from a landing perspective, I see danger,” Chen said. “It’s a formidable challenge.”
The Perseverance rover, which released last July, is the largest vehicle NASA has attempted to land on Mars, weighing more than a metric ton and 50% more science and technology than Curiosity, which landed in 2012. Two new technologies will help perseverance land safely: a distance trigger, which allows the rover to decide when to deploy the parachute and the relative navigation of the terrain, which essentially provides the eyes of the rover and a map, so you can check if it lands in the right place.
“If it weren’t for the range trigger and the relative navigation of the terrain, we just wouldn’t be able to go to Jezero,” Chen said.
NASA / JPL-Caltech
The coronavirus pandemic has only further complicated the landing.
“We hoped that our world situation regarding COVID would have improved since the launch. It hasn’t been like that, and that has meant we need to be flexible and adapt to continue working safely and effectively,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate Administrator of the direction of the scientific mission. “Regardless of everything that has happened because of COVID, it is the constant innovation, dedication and above all the unity of this team that has allowed the work on the Perseverance rover to continue safely.”
Perseverance brings a lot of new and new technologies, including one small helicopter called Ingenuity and the tools needed to collect samples for future Earth studies. For the first time, we will also be able to see and hear what it is like to land on another planet thanks to a new system of cameras and microphones.
These new, more accurate EDL technologies will help enable them human exploration of the red planet in the future, scientists said.
NASA will broadcast the historic event live on its website on Feb. 18, starting at 2:15 p.m. ET.