[ad_1]
The American rover “Perseverance” has successfully landed on Mars. “Landing confirmed,” he said Thursday from the US space agency NASA control center in Pasadena, California, and engineers and scientists applauded and cheered. Just minutes after landing, “Perseverance” sent out its first black-and-white pixelated photos of Mars. “What a wonderful day,” said Acting NASA Chief Steve Jurczyk.
The robot weighs around 1000 kilograms.
“What a wonderful team that has worked through all the adversities and challenges that come with landing a rover on Mars, and then the challenges of the corona pandemic.”
Search for traces of microbial life
Launched in July 2020 from the Cape Canaveral spaceport, the robot landed with a risky maneuver that lasted several minutes in a dry lake called “Jezero Crater” that had never before been examined at the site. The roughly $ 2.5 billion (about € 2.2 billion) expensive rover “Perseverance” (German for: endurance) was designed and built for about eight years and is supposed to look for traces of earlier microbial life on Mars as well. like that Explore the climate and geology of the planet.
On board, the approximately 1000 kilogram robot the size of a small car has, among other things, 7 scientific instruments, 23 cameras, a laser and numerous NASA premieres: for the first time with “Perseverance”, microphones were sent to Mars , for the first time a small helicopter and, for the first time, in a mission developed jointly with the European Space Agency ESA, samples will be brought to Earth from Mars.
Due to the corona pandemic, only about half of the NASA employees who would normally work there during such a maneuver were present at the control center. They wore masks, kept their distance from each other, and after confirmation of the successful landing, they did not hug as usual, but simply clapped with glee. “The team is going nuts, everything is so surreal,” said chief engineer Rob Manning. The large plastic box of peanuts, which is usually passed before such a landing attempt and is supposed to bring good luck, has been replaced by individual packages for everyone, he had previously revealed.
Fifth rover on Mars
“Perseverance” is already the fifth rover that NASA brings to Mars – most recently in 2012 “Curiosity”. Overall, however, only less than half of all Mars missions launched worldwide have been successful. Last week, space probes, first from the United Arab Emirates and then from China, successfully orbited the planet. It is assumed that “Al-Amal”, the UAE probe, will not land, the landing of the Chinese spacecraft “Tianwen 1” is scheduled in two or three months.
“I’m safe on Mars,” said “Perseverance” after landing via the short message service Twitter. “Perseverance will get you anywhere.” The landing was also confirmed on NASA’s Twitter profile, but it also added: “The countdown to Mars has ended, but the mission has only just begun.”
The dream of humans on Mars
Spacecraft have repeatedly landed on Mars since the 1970s. The rover did this Thursday night, but when will it first set foot on Mars?
Even before the US space agency NASA was founded in 1958, there were initial plans for a manned flight. Presidents of the United States, from George Bush Sr. to Donald Trump, spoke about sending people to Mars. The announcements have not yet been implemented. The expedition to the Red Planet could look like this:
THE ARRIVAL
The journey from Earth to Mars takes about seven months. The private space companies SpaceX and Blue Origin are building rockets that could carry tens of thousands of tons of material to Mars. In long flight, astronauts are exposed to extreme stresses from radiation and weightlessness, for example, they suffer from muscle wasting. But the difficulties are considered manageable.
THE STAY
Astronauts would have to stay on Mars for 15 months before the red planet and Earth were on the same side of the sun again. It’s very cold on Mars, averaging minus 63 degrees. There are already protective suits and houses in which people can survive in such temperatures.
Medical emergencies are a risk because the distance is too great to evacuate the sick. To keep this risk as low as possible, the astronauts’ genes are examined as well as their family medical history. In this way it can be largely ruled out that a participant develops cancer during the expedition.
For other diseases, such as broken bones or kidney stones, doctors are developing ways in which astronauts can treat themselves, for example, with a robot-controlled injection needle. Appendicitis could be fatal on Mars, but the appendix could be removed as a precaution on Earth.
The severe dust storms on Mars are one of the challenges of a manned mission. Dust can hide the sun for months, causing solar panels to stop working. To ensure the power supply, the crew had small nuclear reactors in their luggage. Some utensils could be made on-site from material from Mars with 3D printers.
MARCH COLOGNE
Some visionaries already have a permanent settlement on Mars in mind. Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk wants to use a first expedition to Mars to build a factory that turns Martian water and carbon dioxide into oxygen and methane fuel. The President of the Mars Society, Robert Zubrin, wants to create “new offshoots of human civilization” on the planet. Others, however, warn against the illusion of a “planet B.”
The “Mars 2020” mission with “Perseverance” is intended to help pave the way for manned missions to Mars. The plan is to develop a system to extract vital oxygen from the Martian atmosphere, which consists mainly of carbon dioxide.
(APA / red, Photo: APA / APA (AFP))
