Sometimes half a step can be a good thing – especially on this long trip. The agency’s latest rover has just 146 million miles left to reach its goal.
NASANo. Mars The 2020 Perseverance Rover mission has logged many flight miles after flying from the side of the Skyward due to the precision of 30 July – 146.3 million miles (235.4 million kilometers). It turns out that the spacecraft will travel 11,900 miles per hour (19,000 kph) on February 18, 2021, the same distance before hitting the Red Planet’s atmosphere like a freight train.
“At 1:40 pm Pacific time today, our spacecraft will be several miles out of its metaphorical rearview mirror as it carries out its metaphorical windshield,” said Julie Kangas, a navigator working on the Perseverance Rover mission at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Southern California. “While I don’t think there will be a cake, especially since most of us work from home, it’s still a pretty neat target. Stop ahead, Jezero Crater.”
The Sun’s gravitational influence not only plays an important role in shaping the path of spacecraft on Mars (as well as elsewhere in the solar system), but also the relative movements of the two planets. So the solid path to the red planet follows a curved path instead of an arrow-straight path.
NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover reached its halfway point – 146.3 million miles (235.4 million kilometers) on October 27, 2020 on a Jazero Crater voyage on PJT (4:40 EDT). Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech
“Even so, the rover is not halfway between the two worlds, even though it is only half the distance we need to travel to Mars.” “In straight-distance, Earth is 26.6 million miles [42.7 million kilometers] There are 17.9 million miles behind Earth and Mars [28.8 million kilometers] in front of.”
At current distances, it takes 2 minutes, 22 seconds for the transmission to travel from the mission controllers JPL Via the Deep Space Network for spacecraft. By the time of landing, will diligently cover 292.5 million miles (470.8 million kilometers), and Mars will be about 130 million miles (209 million kilometers) away from Earth; At that point, the broadcast will take about 11.5 minutes to reach the spacecraft.
NASA’s Mars 2020 Persuasion Rover has logged 146.3 million (235.4 million kilometers) space miles – exactly half of what will be covered before reaching the red planet. See the full interactive experience on the eyes on the solar system.
The work continues unabated
The mission team continues to test large and small spacecraft systems during inter-plan cruises. The remix and MOXIE instruments of the Perseverance were tested and determined to be in good condition on 15 October. Meda got her thumbs up on October 19th. The PIXL instrument on October 16 also had a line item to check the condition of the X-ray tube. , Which also went according to plan.
“If it is part of our spacecraft and lightning passes through it, we want to confirm that it is still functioning properly after the launch,” said Keith Kaumux, deputy chief engineer of the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover mission. “Between these checkouts – including charging rover and Mars helicopter batteries, uploading files and sequences for surface operations, and planning and executing for a trajectory correction exercise – our plate is complete until landing.”
This image of the Mars 2020 spacecraft in interplanetary space has been created using the image of NASA Eyes on the solar system. The image is from the middle of a mission between Earth and Mars. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech
More about the mission
The main purpose of Perseverance’s mission to Mars is astrobiology, which involves the discovery of signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will feature planetary geology and past climates, pave the way for red planet human exploration, and will be the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith (broken rock and dust).
Subsequent missions, currently under consideration by NASA in collaboration with the ESA (European Space Agency), will send a spacecraft to Mars, which will collect these cached samples from the surface and return to Earth for in-depth analysis.
The Mars 2020 mission is part of a larger program that includes a mission to the moon as a way to prepare for the red planet’s human exploration. Accused with astronauts returning to the moon by 2024, NASA will establish a continuous presence on and around the moon by 2028 through NASA’s Artemis lunar research plans.
Operates and manages JPL, Perseverance and Curiosity rovers for NASA by Caltech in Pasadena, California.
