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It reached the surface of Mars before 10 o’clock in Central European time on Thursday night after landing without human assistance using satellite data and its own camera and instruments, the US space agency NASA said. “Self-propelled” technology was needed because radio waves traveling at the speed of light between Earth and Mars travel 11 minutes 22 seconds, so direct “manual” control was not possible. The Perseverance landing operation was assisted by several satellites orbiting the planet.
Called by NASA experts only the “seven minutes of dread”, the huge parachute opened first, then the heat shield dislodged and the landing unit approached the planned landing site, while searching for radars for the correct terrain to to land. In the last 20 meters, a so-called sky crane finally lowered the Martian to the surface.
The roughly off-road one-ton robot is slated to spend an entire Martian year (687 Earth days) on Mars, searching for traces of possible past microbial life, studying the planet’s climate and geology, and collecting rock and soil samples. . Also, further explore the possibility of human missions.
The first black and white images
Live camera footage of the landing could not be seen, but NASA illustrated what was happening on its broadcast using a simulation. At 3:44 pm
Soon after, the first two images also arrived thanks to Perseverance’s front and rear cameras. These “technical” cameras help with navigation; later on, the unit will also send higher resolution photos and selfies along with a host of valuable science data.
Nine years after landing on Curiosity in 2012, NASA successfully sent a robot back to Mars. The event has a tangible interest in the maturation of the Apollo-11 Moon.
Here you can see the Svábhegy Observatory live feed about the landing, below the NASA live feed:
Here’s NASA’s pre-landing animation of how the process works:
A preview of what’s to come in just a couple of hours. Once this part is behind me, I can finally get to work. I can not wait. #CountdownToMars pic.twitter.com/KDrOzNFats
– NASA’s Perseverance Mars Rover (@NASAPersevere) February 18, 2021
Although the Perseverance mission was planned for approximately two Earth years (a Martian year), it could easily serve much longer than scientific knowledge, since Curiosity, for example, was “simply” expected to do so, but has accomplished much more. since then. .also operates.
The last Martian will not return to Earth either, and the samples it has collected are slated to take on another mission with the European Space Agency in the early 2030s.
There will also be flight
An experimental swamp helicopter called Ingenuity has also arrived on the planet on the fly, which will conduct test flights. If the 1.8-kilogram solar-powered drone survives the cold Martian nights, that means future missions can be expanded with aerial observations. If all goes well, Ingenuity could be the first device to fly on an alien planet – it turns on and off.
The Martian was also brought to the surface by an experimental device that
extracts pure oxygen from carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of Mars.
This could be invaluable in supporting human life on Mars in the future, as well as providing propellants for missiles to fly home.
In just over a week, this is the third spacecraft to reach Mars. The UAE’s first probe underway was launched on February 9, and the Chinese Tianven-1 spacecraft orbited the red planet the next day.
Opening Image: Twitter / NASA
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