18.02.2021 Perseverance lands - NASA Mars 2020 vehicle - on Mars in the crater Lake to look for signs of ancient life that may have existed on the red planet in the past.

Rover Perseverance

The Rover, the largest and most advanced NASA has ever assembled, will act as a robotic geologist collecting dust and rock samples that will then be transported back to Earth in the 30s. For this reason, Perseverance is also the cleanest machine ever sent to Mars

It is designed so that it does not contaminate the samples taken with any microbes from the Earth, which could, of course, skew the results of the analyzes. On the agency's website NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory a live broadcast will be available on the day of landing, on 18 February 2021 from 14:15 European time.

Due to the pandemic, the project teams had to make many changes and adjustments, but eventually adapted to operate safely and efficiently. The team that will be at the center during the landing underwent a preparatory three-day landing simulation last week.

Landing is not easy

"Don't let anyone say otherwise - landing on Mars is difficult," said John McNamee, project manager of the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover mission at JPL. "But the women and men on this team are the best in the world at what they do. When our spacecraft reaches the summit of Mars' atmosphere at about three and a half miles per second, we'll be ready. "

Perseverance is the latest activity in exploring the red planet in NASA's long history. It builds on and uses knowledge from previous missions, with new goals that will bring a little more light into the history of Mars.

"NASA has been exploring Mars since the Mariner 1965 spacecraft in July 4. Since then, two more orbits, seven successful orbiters and eight landers, have been made," said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of NASA's scientific missions directorate.

Landing on the Red Planet

"Perseverance, based on a summary of previous knowledge gained from these pioneers, provides an opportunity not only to expand our knowledge of the Red Planet, but also to explore one of humanity's most important and interesting questions about the origin of life on Earth and other planets." . "

The spacecraft, which was launched in July, has only about 41,2 million km left from its 470,7 million km journey from Earth to Mars. And as soon as they reach Mars, the rover's journey across the planet's surface begins with an impact. NASA teams call it "7 minutes of horror." Just weeks after landing, video cameras and microphones mounted on the spaceship will show this torturous experience from the perspective of the rover itself.

"Seven minutes of horror"

The time before radio signals from Earth arrive on Mars takes approximately 10,5 minutes, which means that those seven minutes, the time allotted for landing maneuvers, will be without any help or intervention by NASA teams on Earth. That's the "seven minutes of horror." The ground teams will tell the spacecraft when to launch the EDL (Entry, Descent = descent and Landing), and only the spacecraft itself will act.

According to Allen Chen, director of EDL Mars 2020 at JPL, it is no exaggeration to say that this is the most critical and dangerous part of the mission. "We are not guaranteed to be successful," Zurbuchen admitted. However, the project teams did everything they could to make the landing a success. This rover, weighing more than one ton, is the heaviest NASA has ever attempted to land. The spacecraft will reach the top of the Martian atmosphere at approximately 19 km / h and must decelerate to 312 km / h over the next seven minutes for the rover to land lightly on the surface. It will whistle across the Martian sky like a meteor, Chen said.

This image illustrates the events that occurred in the last minutes before the landing of NASA's Perseverance rover on the surface of Mars

About 10 minutes before entering the sparse Martian atmosphere, the base that carried the vehicle on its way through space separated, and the vehicle prepared for a guided descent using small jets located on its mantle to help keep it heading. The spacecraft's heat shield must withstand a maximum temperature of approximately 75 degrees Celsius for 1299 seconds after entering the atmosphere.

Ancient lake

Perseverance is heading for the 45 km wide bottom of an ancient lake and river delta, the most difficult place to land for NASA's spacecraft on Mars to date. Instead of a flat and smooth place, this small landing area is dotted with sand dunes, steep cliffs, boulders and small craters.

The spacecraft has two new systems - called Range Trigger and Terrain-Relative Navigation - for navigation in this difficult and dangerous terrain. The Range Trigger instructs the 21 m wide parachute to launch, based on the spacecraft's position 240 seconds after entering the atmosphere. After the parachute is extended, the heat shield separates. Terrain-Relative Navigation acts like a second brain - using cameras to capture a rapidly approaching surface and determine the safest place to land. According to NASA, the landing site can move up to 609 meters.

When the vehicle reaches a distance of about 2 km above the surface of Mars and the heat shield separates, the rear cover and parachute also separate. Landing engines, consisting of eight deceleration engines, are activated to slow down the descent from 305 km / h to approximately 2,7 km / h. Subsequently, the famous maneuver of the space crane will take place, with the help of which the Curiosity vehicle also landed. Nylon ropes launch the rover 7,6 m below the descent base. After the rover touches the surface of Mars, the cable is released, the descent base flies off and lands at a safe distance.

On the surface of Mars

Once the rover lands, the two-year Perseverance mission to Mars begins. He first goes through a "check" phase to make sure he's ready.

The Rover will also find a convenient, level surface to unload an Ingenuity helicopter that will use it as a helipad for its five potential test flights over a 30-day period. This will happen during the first 50 to 90 sols or Mars days of the mission. Once the Ingenuity settles on the surface, Perseverance will move to a safe remote location and use its cameras to monitor the Ingenuity's flight. It will be the first helicopter flight on another planet.

After these years, Perseverance will begin to search for evidence of ancient life, study the climate and geology of Mars, and collect samples that will eventually be transported to Earth through planned future missions. It will move three times faster than previous vehicles.

Perseverance base

Crater Lake was chosen as the base of Perseverance because there were the bottom of the lake and the river delta billions of years ago. The rocks and soil from this basin could provide fossilized evidence of previous microbial life, as well as other information about what ancient Mars actually was.

"Sophisticated scientific equipment will not only help in the search for fossilized microbial life, but will also expand our knowledge of Mars geology and its past, present and future," said Ken Farley, a Mars 2020 scientist.

"Our research team has been busy planning how best to handle the cutting-edge data that Perseverance expects to spew. That's the "problem" we're looking forward to. "

This mosaic of photographs taken by the Martian spacecraft Reconnaissance shows the route that Perseverance could take through the Lake crater.

The route that Perseverance takes is about 24 km long. This "impressive journey" will take years, Farley said. But what scientists might discover about Mars is worth it.

MOXY

Perseverance also brings with it tools that could help in future exploration of Mars, such as MOXIE, the Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment. This experimental device, the size of a car battery, attempts to convert Martian carbon dioxide to oxygen. This could help NASA scientists not only find out if it is possible to produce rocket fuel on Mars, but also oxygen that could be used in future human exploration of the red planet.

"The mission provides hope and unity," Zurbuchen said. "Mars, as our cosmic neighbor, still captures our imagination."

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