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NASA’s Perseverance rover is just days away from its daring seven-minute landing on Mars, where it will land on the most challenging terrain ever to be targeted by a Red Planet mission.
On February 18, the car-sized Perseverance, the heart of NASA’s Mars 2020 mission, will attempt to land inside the 28-mile-wide (45-kilometer) Jezero crater. the entry, descent and landing (EDL) of a mission to Mars is often referred to as a “seven minute terror” because the sequence is so heartbreaking and occurs faster than radio signals can reach Earth from Mars. That means the spacecraft is alone once it enters the Martian atmosphere, and a gripping new video from NASA shows how the rover will pull off such an amazing feat.
“Space always has a way of throwing curveballs at us and surprising us,” Swati Mohan, Mars 2020 guidance, navigation and control operations leader at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California. says in the video. “There are a lot of things that have to go right for Perseverance to hit the ground safely.”
In photos: NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover mission to the Red Planet
The EDL phase begins when the spacecraft reaches the top of the Martian atmosphere and ends with a rocket-powered overhead crane lowering Perseverance safely to the surface of the Red Planet. The entire EDL sequence lasts approximately seven minutes, during which many crucial steps must be performed. The stakes are high on Thursday for Mars 2020, which will search for signs of ancient life and collect samples for the first humanity. interplanetary sample return campaign.
“There is a lot to be reckoned with,” says JPL’s Al Chen, Mars 2020 Entry, Descent and Landing Leader, in the video. “This is the first leg of our sample return relay race, there is a lot of work going on. line”.
Shortly before reaching the Red Planet, Perseverance will abandon his cruise stage, which helped fly the rover to Mars for the past 6.5 months. The next big milestone is atmospheric input, as the rover soars into the Martian skies at about 12,100 mph (19,500 kph).
The vehicle is equipped with a heat shield that will protect the rover from the intense heat generated during its initial descent and will also help to reduce the speed of the spacecraft. Approximately 11 kilometers (7 miles) above the surface, the spacecraft will spread out its 21.5 meters wide (70.5 feet) wide. supersonic parachute – the largest ever sent to another planet, according to the video.
Soon after, the heat shield will separate and fall away from the spacecraft, exposing Perseverance to the Martian atmosphere for the first time and powering the vehicle’s terrain-relative navigation system, which is new autopilot technology that will help guide the rover to a safe landing in Mars.
“Perseverance will be the first mission to use terrain-related navigation,” Mohan says in the video. “As it parachutes down, it will actually take pictures of the surface of Mars and determine where to go based on what it sees. This is ultimately like landing with your eyes open: having this new technology really allows Perseverance to land on much more terrain. challenging that Curiosity, or any previous mission to Mars, could. ”
Destination Mars: chronology of the landings of the red planet
Perseverance’s EDL sequence is very similar to NASA’s. Rover curiosity, which landed in 2012. However, Perseverance is slightly larger and equipped with more advanced scientific instruments, including new technology that will help guide the spacecraft through its difficult landing.
Scientists believe that a 250 m deep lake filled up Crater lake about 3.9 billion to 3.5 billion years ago. The area also has a prominent river delta, where water once flowed and deposited large amounts of sediment. While this landing site offers geologically rich terrain, the rocks, craters, and cliffs make it a very challenging place for Perseverance to land.
“The science team identified Jezero Crater as basically an ancient lake bed and one of the most promising places to search for evidence of ancient microbial life and collect samples for future return to Earth,” said Matt Smith, flight director for the cruise ship. Mars 2020 from JPL. operations, it says in the video. “The problem is that it is a much more dangerous place to land.”
During the last minute before Perseverance lands on the Red Planet, the mission sky crane descent stage it will fire eight retro rockets, or landing engines from Mars. The overhead crane will then lower the rover safely to the ground with three nylon cables. Once the rover has made landfall, it will cut the cables connecting it to the descent stage, which will then fly and land safely away from Perseverance.
“Surviving those seven minutes is really just the beginning of Perseverance,” Chen says in the video. “His job, to be the first stage of the return of the sample; to go looking for those signs of past life on Mars, all of that can’t begin until we get Perseverance safely to the ground, and that’s when the real mission begins.”
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