NASA’s next Mars rover has been cleared for takeoff.
This morning (July 27), the $ 2.7 billion Mars 2020 Perseverance rover It passed its launch readiness review, the last major hurdle to be overcome before its planned takeoff on Thursday (July 30) from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.
“The launch readiness review is complete, and we’re actually going to launch it,” said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine during a press conference today.
Related: How to watch NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover launch live online
Perseverance is slated to launch on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket on Thursday during a two-hour window that opens at 7:50 a.m. EDT (1150 GMT). You can see all the action live here at Space.com, courtesy of NASA.
It seems that Mother Nature will cooperate with that plan. There is only a 20% chance that bad weather will affect Thursday’s attempt, launch meteorological officer Jessica Williams, of the 45th Space Force, said during today’s press conference.
The launch will send Perseverance on a nearly 7-month cruise to Mars, ending with a dramatic crane landing on the red planet. Jezero Crater February 18, 2021.
Related: NASA Mars Perseverance rover mission to the Red Planet (photos)
The nuclear powered rover will spend at least a year from Mars (almost two Earth years) exploring the 45-kilometer-wide Jezero, which housed a lake and river delta in the ancient past. Perseverance will look for signs of antiquity Life on Mars, study crater geology, and collect and cache several dozen samples, among other tasks.
Those samples will be brought back to Earth, perhaps as early as 2031, by a Joint NASA / European Space Agency campaign. Once the Mars material is here, scientists from around the world will search for signs of life and clues to the planet’s mysterious history.
“That will be the first time in history that we do a mission back to Mars,” said Bridenstine. “In fact, it is the first time in history that we do a return mission from any planet.”
(However, mankind has accomplished other types of sample return missions. NASA’s Apollo astronauts brought hundreds of pounds of rocks from the moon, and robotic probes have returned to Earth with asteroid material and specks of comet dust.)
Perseverance will also demonstrate several new technologies on the Martian surface. For example, one of the rover’s 10 instruments, called MOXIE, will generate oxygen from the thin, carbon dioxide-dominated atmosphere of the Red Planet. Such a team, once expanded, could help future astronauts explore the Red Planet, a goal that NASA wants to achieve in the 2030s.
Also, a 4 pound. (1.8 kilograms) helicopter called wit will travel to Mars in the belly of Perseverance. Once the rover finds a good spot, the small helicopter will separate and conduct a few test flights, the first being carried out by a helicopter on an alien world.
If the ingenuity is successful, future missions to Mars may routinely employ helicopters as rover explorers or astronauts, NASA officials said. Rotorcraft could also do its own substantial scientific work, exploring hard-to-reach places like caves and cliffs.
The mill will not collect data in this way; it does not carry science instruments. But the small helicopter does have a camera system, which should provide some incredible and unprecedented views of the Red Planet.
“Imagine looking from Perseverance at a helicopter that flies around Perseverance, and the helicopter is looking at Perseverance, giving us images of Perseverance, what Perseverance is doing,” Bridenstine said. “We are going to be able to see with our own eyes, with movies, this type of activities that happen in another world.”
The Perseverance launch window runs through August 15. If the rover can’t take off by then, it will have to be stored until the next opportunity in 2022. (Earth and Mars line up properly for interplanetary missions for a few weeks) every 26 months)
The launch of the NASA rover will be the third takeoff from Mars in less than two weeks. The United Arab Emirates’ Hope Orbiter launched on July 19, and China’s Tianwen-1 orbiter-lander-rover mission did the same on July 23.
Mike Wall is the author of “Out There” (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a book on the search for extraterrestrial life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook.
