What to expect when the March 2020 Perseverance rover arrives on the red planet on February 18, 2021.
With about 3.9 million kilometers left to travel into space, NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance mission is just days away from trying to land the agency’s fifth rover on the red planet. Engineers at NASA’s jet propulsion laboratory in southern California, where the mission is being managed, have confirmed that the spacecraft is healthy and destined to touch Jezero Crater around 3:55 PM EST (12:55 PM). pm PST) on February 18, 2021.
“Perseverance is NASA’s most ambitious Mars rover mission, scientifically focused on finding out if there has ever been life on Mars in the past,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of the scientific mission’s management at headquarters. from NASA to Washington. “To answer that question, the landing crew will have their hands full and take us to Jezero Crater, the most challenging Martian terrain ever destined for a landing.”
Jezero is a basin where scientists believe an ancient river emptied into a lake and deposited fan-shaped sediment known as a delta. Scientists think the environment in this area is likely to have retained signs of any life that was established billions of years ago, but Jezero also has steep cliffs, sand dunes, and pebble fields. Landing on Mars is difficult (only 50% of all previous attempts to land on Mars have been successful), and these geological features make it even more so. The Perseverance team is building on the lessons of previous touchdowns and using new technologies that allow the spacecraft to navigate to its landing site more accurately and avoid hazards on its own.
“The Perseverance team is putting the finishing touches on the complex choreography needed to land on Jezero Crater,” said Jennifer Trosper, deputy project director for the JPL mission. “Landing on Mars is not guaranteed, but we have been preparing for a decade to put the wheels of this rover on the surface of Mars and start working.”
You can watch the drama of the entry, descent and landing of Perseverance (EDL), the riskiest part of the rover’s mission that some engineers call “the seven minutes of terror” – live on NASA TV. Commentary begins at 2:15 pm EST (11:15 am PST) on February 18th. Engineers expect to receive notice of key milestones to land at the estimated times below. (Due to the distance that Mars signals must travel to Earth, these events actually take place on Mars 11 minutes, 22 seconds earlier than indicated here).
– Cruise Stage Separation: The part of the spacecraft that has been flying Perseverance – with NASA’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter connected to its belly – through space for the past six and a half months will be separated from the entrance capsule towards 3:38 pm EST (12:00 pm) 38 h PST).
– Atmospheric inlet: The probe is expected to reach the top of the Martian atmosphere traveling at 19,500 km / h at 3:48 pm EST (12:48 pm PST).
– Maximum heating: Atmospheric friction will warm the bottom of the spacecraft to temperatures of up to about 2,370 degrees Fahrenheit (about 1,300 degrees Celsius) at 3:49 pm EST (12:49 pm PST).
– Parachute deployment: The spacecraft will deploy its parachute at supersonic speed around 3:52 pm EST (12:52 pm PST). The exact deployment time is based on the new Range Trigger technology, which improves the accuracy of the spacecraft’s ability to achieve a landing target.
– Separation of the thermal shield: The protective bottom of the inlet capsule will come off about 20 seconds after the parachute is deployed. This allows the rover to use radar to determine how far from the ground it is and use its ground-based navigation technology to find a safe landing site.
– Rear housing separation: The rear half of the entry capsule that attaches to the parachute will separate from the rover and its “jetpack” (known as the descent stage) at 15:54 EST (12:54 pm PST). The jetpack will use retrorockets to slow down and fly to the landing site.
– Touchdown: The descent stage of the spacecraft, by maneuvering the sky crane, will lower the rover to the surface with nylon ties. The rover is expected to touch the surface of Mars at human speed (approximately 1.7 mph, or 2.7 km / h) around 3:55 pm EST (12:55 pm PST).
A variety of factors can affect the precise timing of the milestones listed above, including the properties of the Martian atmosphere that are difficult to predict until the spacecraft will actually fly.
Mission controllers may not be able to confirm these milestones at the times indicated above due to the complexity of deep space communications. The flow of detailed engineering data (called telemetry) in near real time is based on a new type of retransmission capability added this past year to NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). Engineers expect additional data to be retrieved from Earth directly through NASA’s deep space network and two other Earth-based antennas shortly before contact.
It is important to note that the rover can land safely on Mars without communications with Earth: perseverance has pre-programmed landing instructions and significant range. Additional communication passes are planned in the hours and days following the landing event.
Once on the surface, one of Perseverance’s first activities will be to take photographs of his new home and transmit them back to Earth. Over the next few days, engineers will also check the rover’s health and deploy the remote sensing stick (also known as its “boss”) so he can take more pictures. The Perseverance team will take more than a month to thoroughly inspect the rover and load the new flight software to prepare for the search for ancient life on Mars. During the same period, the Helicopter Ingenuity Mars team will ensure that their small but powerful robot is ready for the first attempt at controlled and motorized aerodynamic flight on another planet.
“The Ingenuity team will be on the edge of our seats with the Perseverance team on the day of landing,” said MiMi Aung, JPL’s Ingenuity project manager. “We can’t wait until the engine and helicopter are both on the surface of Mars and ready for action.”
Learn more about the mission of perseverance
A key goal of Perseverance’s mission to Mars is astrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will characterize the planet’s past geology and climate, pave the way for human exploration of the red planet, and be the first mission to collect and hide Martian rock and sediment for later return to Earth.
Subsequent NASA missions, in cooperation with ESA (European Space Agency), would send spacecraft to Mars to collect these sealed samples from the surface and return them to Earth for in-depth analysis.
The Mars 2020 mission is part of a broader NASA initiative that includes missions to the Moon as a way to prepare for human exploration of the red planet. NASA will establish a sustained human presence on and around the Moon through NASA’s Artemis lunar exploration plans.
JPL, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the Mars 2020 Perseverance mission and the Mars Helicopter craft technology demonstration for NASA.
The press dossier for the Perseverance landing can be found at:
go.nasa.gov/perseverance-landing-press-kit
A press kit for wit can be found at:
go.nasa.gov/ingenuity-press-kit