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| Part of the Mars 2020 mission | |
.jpg) The Perseverance rover a few seconds before landing was seen from the skycrane system |
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| Other names | Percy |
|---|---|
| Type | Martian rover |
| Producer | Jet Propulsion Laboratory |
| Technical details | |
| Length | 2 m |
| Diameter | 2.7 m |
| Height | 2.2 m |
| Launch table | 1,025 kg |
| Power | 110 W. |
| Flight history | |
| Release date | July 30, 2020, 11:50 UTC [1] |
| Date of landing | February 18, 2021, 20:55 UTC [2] |
| Landing place | Jezero Crater |
| Time | 597 hours after landing [2] |
| Traveled distance | 91 m [3] on March 12, 2021 |
| instruments | |
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NASA Martian Rovers
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Perseverance , nicknamed Percy , is aMartian rover the size of a car designed to explore the Jezero crater on Mars as part of NASA's Mars 2020 mission. It was manufactured by Jet Propulsion Laboratory and released on July 30, 2020 11:50 UTC. [1] Confirmation that the rover landed on Mars was received on February 18, 2021 20:55 UTC. [2] On March 15, 2021, Perseverance has been on Mars for 24 messengers (25 Earth days) since landing.
Perseverance has a design similar to its rover predecessor, Curiosity , from which it was moderately modernized; it is equipped with seven main instruments, 19 cameras and two microphones. [4] The rover also carries the Ingenuity mini-helicopter , an experimental aircraft that will attempt its first motor flight to another planet.
The rover's objectives include searching for past Martian environments capable of supporting life, searching for possible microbial life in those environments, collecting rock and soil samples that will be stored on the Martian surface, and testing oxygen production in the Martian atmosphere to prepare for future manned missions. human. [5]
The Perseverance Rover has four scientific objectives: [5]
Despite the successful landing of the Curiosity rover in August 2012, the NASA Mars Exploration Program was in a state of uncertainty in the early 2010s. Budget cuts have forced NASA to abandon a planned collaboration with the European Space Agency and cancel a mission. [6] By the summer of 2012, a program that had previously launched a mission to Mars every two years suddenly woke up with no mission approved after 2013. [7]
In 2011, a report by the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine containing an influential set of recommendations made by the planetary science community stated that the top priority of NASA's planetary exploration program in 2013-2022 should begin a campaign. to return samples from Mars, a project with three missions for the collection, launch and safe return of evidence from the Martian surface on Earth. The report said NASA should invest in a sampling rover as a first step in the effort to keep costs below $ 2.5 billion. [8]
Following the success of the Curiosity rover and in response to the report's recommendations, NASA announced its intention to launch a new Martian rover mission by 2020 at the American Geophysical Union conference in December 2012. [9]
The Perseverance Rover is based on the design of its predecessor, Curiosity . [10] While there are differences in the scientific tools and engineering needed to support them, the entire landing system (including the Skycrane landing system and heat shield) and the rover chassis can essentially be recreated without further engineering or research. . This reduces the overall technical risk to the mission, saving funds and time for development. [11] One of the upgrades is a guidance and control technique called "Terrain Relative Navigation" to fine-tune the steering at the final moments of landing. [12] Perseverence has more robust wheels thanCuriosity , who suffered some damage on Mars. [13] The rover has thicker, more durable aluminum wheels with a smaller width and a larger diameter (52.5 cm) than Curiosity 's 50 cm wheels . [14] [15] Aluminum wheels are covered with traction clamps and curved titanium spokes for elastic support. [16] Like Curiosity , the rover includes a robotic arm, although at Perseverance the arm is longer and stronger, measuring 2.1 m in length. The arm contains an elaborate sampling mechanism to store geological samples from the Martian surface in ultra-clean tubes. [17]
The combination of the larger instrument suite, the new sampling system and the modified wheels makes Perseverance 14% heavier than its predecessor (1,025 kg compared to 899 kg). [18]
The rover's power generator (MMRTG) has a mass of 45 kg and uses 4.8 kg of plutonium-238 oxide as its energy source. The natural decomposition of plutonium-238 releases heat which is converted into electricity [19] - about 110 watts at launch. This will decrease over time as the power supply breaks down. [19] MMRTG charges two lithium-ion batteries that power the rover's activities and must be recharged periodically. Unlike solar panels, MMRTG offers engineers significant flexibility in operating the rover's instruments even at night, during dust storms and in winter. [19]
The rover's computer uses a BAE RAD750 with a single radiation-hardened board, has 128 megabytes of DRAM memory and runs at 133 MHz. The flight software can access 4 gigabytes of non-volatile NAND memory on a separate card. [20]
JPL built a copy of the rover that remained on Earth. Called OPTIMISM (Operational Perseverance Twin for Integration of Mechanisms and Instruments Sent to Mars), it is hosted at JPL Mars Yard and is used to test operational procedures and help resolve situations in the event of problems with Perseverance . [21]
Along with Perseverance, he also travels the experimental helicopter, called Ingenuity . This solar-powered helicopter drone weighs 1.8 kg and during its planned 30-day mission will demonstrate flight stability and the potential to look for ideal routes for driving the rover. [22] Apart from a camera, it does not carry scientific instruments. [23] [24] [25]
Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate, chose the name Perseverance following a contest for all elementary and high school students in the United States that attracted more than 28,000 proposals. On March 5, 2020, the winner was announced - a seventh-grader from Virginia, Alexander Mather. In addition to the honor of naming the rover, Mather and his family were invited to the Kennedy Space Center of NASA to track rover launch in July 2020 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida . [26]
After a journey of 480 million km in 7 months, the spacecraft entered the upper atmosphere of Mars with a speed of approximately 20,000 km / h and in just about 7 minutes slowed down to 0 km / h, when the rover was placed on Martian soil. [27] The landing was more accurate than any previous landing on Mars; a performance allowed by the experience gained from the Curiosity landing and the use of the new steering technology. [28]
One such new technology is Terrain Relative Navigation (TRN), a technique in which the rover uses its cameras to photograph the Martian surface as it approaches it in speed and compares it to the maps it has, allowing it to make last minute adjustments to its course. The rover also uses images to select a safe last-minute landing spot, allowing it to land on relatively dangerous terrain. This allows it to land much closer to its scientific objectives than previous missions, which had to use a safe landing ellipse. [28]
The landing successfully Perseverance in Crater Lake was announced in February 18, 2021 8:55 p.m. UTC [2] The rover landed at 18.4447 ° N 77.4508 ° E . [29] The signal from Mars took about 11 minutes to reach Earth.
The landing took place in the late afternoon, with the first images taken being at 15:53:58 (local average solar time). [30] The sky crane, parachute and heat shield are 1.5 km from the rover (see satellite image). The parachute descent of the Perseverance rover was photographed by the HiRISE high-resolution camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). [31]
Jezero Crater was selected as the landing site for this mission, in part because it is the site of an old lake and these basins tend to contain perchlorates . [32] [33] Studies in analog environments on Earth suggest that the composition of the crater, including deposits at the bottom of the crater accumulated from three different sources in the area, is a likely place to find evidence of microbes that reduce perchlorate, if such bacteria live or have previously lived on Mars. [32] [33]
On March 5, 2021, NASA officially named the landing site of the Octavia E. Butler rover . [34]
Based on the scientific objectives, almost 60 proposals [35] [36] for the rover's instrumentation were evaluated and, on July 31, 2014, NASA announced the payload for the rover. [37] [38]
There are additional cameras and, for the first time on a probe on Mars, two audio microphones, which will be used for technical support during landing, [50] driving and collecting samples. [51]
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NASA plans to invest approximately $ 2.75 billion in the project over 11 years, including $ 2.2 billion for hardware development and construction, $ 243 million for launch services and $ 291 million for 2.5 years of operations mission. [4] [52]
Adjusted for inflation, Perseverance is the sixth mission in the top of NASA's most expensive planetary robotic missions, being cheaper than the mission of its predecessor, the Curiosity rover . [53] Perseverance benefited from the build-to-print backup hardware (according to the customer's exact specifications) from the Curiosity mission , which helped reduce development costs and saved "probably tens of millions if not even $ 100 million, ”according to Mars 2020 Deputy Engineer Keith Comeaux. [54]
The white - orange parachute used by the rover to land on Mars contained a secret message, which was discovered and deciphered by Twitter. NASA system engineer Ian Clark used a binary code for the parachute color model to write the message Dare Mighty Things .
The 70-meter-wide parachute consisted of 80 strips of fabric that form a hemisphere-shaped canopy and each strip consists of four pieces. Dr. Clark thus had 320 pieces to work with and coded his secret message. Also on the outer ring of the parachute are coded the letters and numbers 34 11 58 N 118 10 31 W, which represent the GPS coordinates for the JPL headquarters in Pasadena, California (34 ° 11'58 ”N 118 ° 10'31” W). Only about six people knew about it before the Feb. 18 landing, Ian Clark said. The code was found and deciphered in just a few hours after the Perseverance team said in a press conference, “Sometimes we hide messages for others to discover. So, we invite you all to try and show us your work ”. [55][56] [57]
"Dare Great Things" is a quote from President Theodore Roosevelt and is the unofficial motto of JPL. It is often used at JPL and adorns many of the center's walls.
The first image from Perseverance
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Mars Perseverance Rear Right Hazard Avoidance Camera
The first color image
One of Perseverance 's wheels
Using spare parts and mission plans developed for NASA's Curiosity Mars rover, the space agency says it can build and launch the rover in 2020 and stay within current budget guidelines.
The main arm includes five electrical motors and five joints (known as the shoulder azimuth joint, shoulder elevation joint, elbow joint, wrist joint and turret joint). Measuring 7 feet (2.1 meters) long, the arm will allow the rover to work as a human geologist would: by holding and using science tools with its turret, which is essentially its "hand".
