CAPA CANAVERAL, Florida (AP) – A NASA explorer crossed the Martian orange sky and landed on the planet on Thursday, taking the riskiest step so far in an epic quest to retrieve rocks that could respond if life ever existed in Mart.
Ground controllers at the space agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., Cheered and exchanged punches and five to succeed – and relief – on receiving confirmation that the six-wheeled Perseverance had fallen on the red planet, a long deadly for incoming spacecraft.
The signal took 11 and a half minutes to reach Earth.
“The touchdown has been confirmed. Perseverance safely on the surface of Mars, ready to start looking for signs of past life, “Flight Controller Swati Mohan announced to colleagues who were shaking hands with anti-coronavirus masks.
The landing marks the third visit to Mars in just over a week. Two spacecraft from the United Arab Emirates and China orbited Mars around the successive days of last week. The three missions withdrew in July to take advantage of the close alignment of Earth and Mars, traveling about 300 million miles in nearly seven months.
Perseverance, the largest and most advanced rover ever sent by NASA, became the ninth spacecraft to successfully land on Mars, each from the United States.
The car-sized plutonium-powered vehicle reached Jezero crater and reached NASA’s smallest and most complicated target to date: a 5-and-a-half-mile strip over an ancient river delta full of pits , cliffs and rock fields. Scientists believe that if life ever flourished on Mars, it would have happened between 3,000 and 4 billion years ago, when water was still flowing on the planet.
For the next two years, Percy, as he is nicknamed, will use his 2-foot arm to drill and collect rock samples with possible signs of past microscopic life. Three to four dozen gypsum-sized samples will be sealed in tubes and reserved for Mars to be retrieved by a rover and taken home by another rocket. The goal is to return them to Earth as early as 2031.
Scientists hope to answer one of the central questions of theology, philosophy, and space exploration.
“Are we alone in this kind of vast cosmic desert, do we just fly through space, or is life much more common? Has it just emerged when and where conditions are ripe? said Ken Williford, assistant scientist for the project. “We’re really about to be able to answer these huge questions.”
The Chinese spacecraft includes a small engine that will also look for evidence of life, if it takes it out of orbit safely in May or June.
Perseverance was in itself during the descent described by NASA as “seven minutes of terror.”
Flight controllers waited helplessly as the pre-programmed spacecraft crashed into the thin Martian atmosphere of 95% carbon dioxide at 19,500 km / h, or 16 times the speed of sound, decreasing as it crashed.
He launched his 21-foot parachute, dropped his thermal shield, and then used a rocket-propelled platform known as a sky crane to lower the rover to about 18 feet above the surface. Perseverance seemed to touch about 35 feet from the nearest rocks.
“Grab this, Jezero!” called a driver.
Mars has proven to be a treacherous place: in less than three months in 1999, an American spacecraft was destroyed into orbit because engineers had mixed metric and English units, and an American lander crashed on Mars. after the engines were cut off prematurely.
Perseverance will conduct an experiment in which it will convert small amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere into oxygen, a process that could be a help for future astronauts by providing breathable air and an ingredient for rocket fuel.
The rover is also equipped with a 25-camera log and two microphones, many of them turned on during the descent. Among the unprecedented views that NASA intends to send in the next two days: the huge supersonic parachute that opens and the ground approaches.
“A party for the eyes and the ears. It will really be spectacular, ”observed Jim Bell of Arizona State University, chief scientist of a pair of stick cameras that will serve as eyes on the rover.
NASA is partnering with the European Space Agency to bring the rocks home. The Perseverance mission alone costs about $ 3 billion.
The only way to confirm or rule out signs of past life is to analyze samples from the best labs in the world. Instruments small enough to be sent to Mars would not have the necessary accuracy.
“It’s really the most extraordinary, incredibly complicated exploration campaign that will make history,” David Parker, director of human and robotic exploration at the European Space Agency, said on the eve of the landing.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department is supported by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.