The US space agency (NASA) has released an animation showing how a ton of its Perseverance rover will land on Mars on February 18.
The robot is being sent to a crater named Jezero where it will find evidence of past life. But in order to carry out this science, one must first touch it gently.
The sequence of maneuvers to land on Mars is often referred to as “seven minutes of terror” – and for good reason.
A lot is going to happen in a terribly short period of time or an upcoming mission will dig a very big and very expensive new hole in the Red Planet.
What’s more, it’s all autonomous.
With a distance of 209 million kilometers (130 million miles) between Earth and Mars, every moment and every movement you see in the animation should be done by onboard computers.
It starts more than 100 kilometers above Mars where the Perseverance Rover will face the first notice of the atmosphere.
At this point, the vehicle, in its protective capsule, travels 20,000 km / h (12,000mph).
Slightly more than 400 seconds, the descending method will have to reduce this velocity to the surface to less than 1 m / s.
Most of the work is done by the heat shield.
As the coolest muscle descends deeper into the air, it becomes super-hot at speeds in excess of 1,000 C – but at the same time, the pull dramatically slows the fall.
By the time the supersonic parachute is deployed from the backshell of the capsule, the velocity has already been reduced to 1,200km / h.
Perseverance will run the 21.5 meter wide parachute for a minute, it will further scrub the entry speed.
However, very complex phases still remain.
At an altitude of 2 km, and when moving at 100 m / s – the Perseverance Rover and its “skycran” detach from the backshell and fall.
Cradle burning after eight rockets to bring the rover into a rotating position above the surface. Nylon rope is used to lower a multi-billion-dollar wheeled vehicle to the ground.
But it’s still not quite that much.
When the cantilever touches the sensor, it should immediately pick up the cables or it will be pulled behind the crane as the cradle flies to dispose of itself at a safe distance.
The sequence looks just like NASA’s last rover, Curiosity, was put on the surface of Mars 12 years ago. However, improvements have been made to keep navigation tools consistently in a more precisely defined landing area.
Touchdown is expected on Mars, late afternoon, according to local time – before 21:00 GMT on Earth.
It is worth remembering that on the day of landing, the time it takes to receive a radio signal from Mars to Earth will be about 700 seconds.
This means that when NASA receives a message from Perseverance that it has placed a rock at the top of the atmosphere, the mission will already be dead or alive on Earth’s surface for several minutes.
The robot will record its descent on the des mera and with microphones. Media files will be sent back to Earth after landing – assuming the firm survives.
Read our guide (also known as Mars 2020 Mission) – where it is going and what it will do.
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