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NASA’s new Mars rover conducted its first test drive this week after staying in place since it landed a fortnight ago.
The Perseverance six-wheeler traveled 21 feet Thursday in a round-trip roundabout that lasted just over half an hour.
“This is really the beginning of our journey here,” said Rich Rieber, the NASA engineer who plotted the route, after more trips were scheduled for Friday and Saturday.
“This is going to be like the Odyssey, adventures along the way, hopefully not Cyclops, and I’m sure there will be a lot of stories written about it.”
Starting for the first time, Perseverance advanced 13 feet from its landing position, took a 150-degree left turn, and then fell back eight feet.
Footprints left by the Perseverance rover on the surface of Mars during its first test drive
(NASA / JPL-Caltech)
“I don’t think I was happier to see the wheel tracks and I’ve seen a lot of them,” said engineer Anais Zarifian of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, when the agency released photos. of the trip.
“When it comes to wheeled vehicles on other planets, there are few first-time events that compare in importance to that of the first voyage,” said Ms Zarifian.
“We are now confident that our propulsion system is ready to go, capable of taking us where science takes us for the next two years.”
Flight controllers continue to check all of Perseverance’s systems and everything has been going well so far. The rover’s robotic arm, for example, was successfully extended and contracted for the first time on Tuesday.
Perseverance will soon embark on his mission to collect rocks from an ancient river delta to eventually return to Earth, but first he must drop his so-called “belly protector” and launch an experimental helicopter called Ingenuity.
It turns out the rover landed right on the edge of a possible helicopter landing strip – a suitable flat spot, according to Rieber.
NASA plans to get off this runway, ditch the pan, and then return for the long-awaited Ingenuity test flight. All of this should be accomplished in late spring.
Scientists are debating whether to take the gentler route to the nearby delta or a possibly more difficult path past intriguing remnants of Mars’ aquatic past, around three to four billion years ago.
Perseverance, NASA’s largest and most advanced rover to date, became the ninth American spacecraft to successfully land on Mars on February 18.
China hopes to land its rover, which has been orbiting the planet since February 10, in a few more months.
On Friday, NASA scientists announced that they had named the Perseverance landing site after the late science fiction writer Octavia E Butler, who grew up next to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
Additional reports from AP
