WASHINGTON – The launch of NASA’s next Mars rover mission was delayed until July 30 due to a launch vehicle processing issue, the latest in a series of slips that have now used nearly half of the opportunities for Launch available for the mission.
NASA announced on June 30 that the mission, previously scheduled for July 22, would be delayed to investigate “non-nominal” data from a line of liquid oxygen sensors during a wet dress test of the Atlas 5 launch vehicle of the mission on June 22 in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
During the wet dress test, the Atlas 5 rocket, without the Mars 2020 spacecraft attached, is launched onto the platform and loaded with thrusters. Drivers go through the countdown until just before T-0 to test the vehicle’s systems. After the test, the liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen tanks of the rocket are drained and the vehicle returns to its integration building.
The mission was originally slated to launch on July 17, the start of its launch period, but has slipped three times. Neither slip has been related to problems with the Mars 2020 spacecraft. A problem with using a crane in the launch vehicle’s processing caused a three-day delay, NASA announced June 10. Two weeks later, the agency said “a contamination concern on the ground support lines” at a payload processing facility would delay the launch by an additional two days, until July 22.
NASA previously stated that the launch period for Mars 2020 would close on August 11. However, NASA said during a pre-launch briefing on the mission on June 17 that the period could be extended until August 15. NASA confirmed in the latest launch delay announcement that the mission can now launch as late as August 15.
The agency added that it is “examining whether the launch period can be extended further until August.” Any additional days that can be added beyond August 15 will likely have much shorter windows each day than the two-hour window available for July 30 release.
After the initial three-day delay, NASA officials said they were confident the mission would still take off before the launch period closes. “We think we have some robustness there, some good robustness there, in the launch window,” said Matt Wallace, deputy project manager for Mars 2020, at the June 17 briefing.
If Mars 2020 didn’t take off before the launch period closed, NASA would have to wait until the next launch opportunity in 26 months. The cost of that delay, previously declared by NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine of up to $ 500 million, was one of the main reasons why the agency made Mars 2020 one of its top priorities, along with the mission of the commercial SpaceX Demo-2 crew, during the pandemic coronavirus.
Mars 2020, with a rover called Perseverance, will land on Mars on February 18, 2021, regardless of what day it launches during the current launch period. The rover will land in Jezero crater on Mars for a mission designed to last at least a Martian year, or 687 Earth days.
Instruments of perseverance will look for signs of past lives on Mars, but the main purpose of the mission is to cache samples of Martian rock and then return to Earth. Mars 2020 is the beginning of a Mars sample return campaign that will feature two missions to launch in 2026 to collect the samples, launch them into Martian orbit, and return them to Earth. NASA will work with ESA on those two missions.
Those two missions are still in the early planning stages, but NASA hopes they will be ready for a launch in 2026, provided Perseverance reaches Mars. “Right now we are working towards the goal of being ready to launch the remaining two legs of the return sample in 2026 to collect those samples and bring them back to Earth for a landing in 2031,” Jim Watzin, director from NASA’s Mars Exploration Program. he said during a June 24 Spacenews mission webinar.
