Following its recent successful launch of the spacecraft, NASA’s Perseverance rover is on its way to Mars, a journey that will take several months. All will be quiet at this time, but that does not mean you have to wait for more information. NASA has launched a free online tool that enables anyone to track the rover’s journey in real time, read information about the journey, and see which celestial body is closest to the spacecraft at any given moment.
The NASA Perseverance rover, formerly known as the Mars 2020 rover, will arrive on Mars in February 2021, embarking on its final mission to explore the Red Planet. The rover has a small helicopter attached to its stomach, one that has recently successfully charged its batteries using the rover’s own power system.
With the help of this new NASA tool, anyone can see the rover on its journey, objects in the vicinity such as the comet 81p Wild 2, and the paths that these various spatial bodies take. When you click through an object, viewers can get additional information about each satellite, comet, planet and moon.
In addition to the rover’s direct view, users can also zoom out to see the wider region around the rover, including the orbit of each nearby planet and comet. Of course, this is all a visualization – you can not really see the rover himself in real time, only his journey and their digital representation of the NASA team.
Experts will check the rover during its journey with the more advanced technologies of the space agency, and make sure that nothing goes wrong with the health of the rover. The teams will make various corrections as needed to keep the rover on its proper route, and they will perform other activities for various purposes, according to NASA.
