27-02-2021 | 13:24 PM
Historic Mars landing of NASA’s Perseverance rover
Context
On February 18, after a seven months journey from Earth NASA’s Perseverance rover landed on the Red Planet (MARS). This rover is the most advanced astrobiology laboratory that has ever sent another planet.
Key Highlights
The mission was launched on an Atlas V 541 launch vehicle from Earth on July 30, 2020.
Perseverance Rover is NASA’s 4th generation Mars Rover and the project is worth $2.7 billion.
Perseverance had travelled 293 million miles (472 million kilometres) since its launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida.
Landing site of the Perseverance rover was Jezero Crater, Mars
It entered the MARS with a speed of 12,000 miles per hour or 19,000 km per hour.
The primary task of Perseverance is to seek signs of ancient life and collect samples of rock and regolith to possibly return these to Earth.
Perseverance is fuelled by electrical power by using heat of plutonium’s radioactive decay.
Perseverance will carry a unique instrument, MOXIE or Mars Oxygen ISRU Experiment, which for the first time will manufacture molecular oxygen on Mars using carbon dioxide from the carbon-dioxide-rich atmosphere.
ISRU means In Situ Resource Utilization or the use of local resources to meet human needs or requirements of the spacecraft.
It will carry Ingenuity, the first ever helicopter to fly on Mars. This is the first time NASA will fly a helicopter on another planet or satellite.
Overall, the rover is designed to study signs of ancient life, collect samples that might be sent back to Earth during future missions and test new technology that might benefit future robotic and human missions to the planet.
The most challenging part of the robotic vehicle was its self-guided descent and landing during a complex series of maneuvers. It was called ‘seven minutes of terror’ by NASA.
