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The Perseverance Rover, sent by NASA to the Red Planet, reached the surface of the planet Mars on Thursday night at 10:55 p.m. (Romanian time), as scheduled. Perseverance is the most complex scientific laboratory ever sent on a mission of this kind. It is the third vehicle sent from Earth, after those of the United Arab Emirates and China, to travel the Earth-Mars distance this year, taking advantage of a window of opportunity.
UPGRADE The rover reached the surface of Mars at the scheduled time, 22.55 Romanian time.
“I am safe on Mars” (I’m safe on Mars) is the first message from Perseverance, 300 million miles away.
“Perseverance is alive on the surface of Mars,” NASA announced on its YouTube channel.
A few minutes after landing, the first images from the Perseverance rover arrived, showing the arid surface of Mars.
“Hello World. The first image of my house forever.” – the text accompanying the photograph taken by Perseverance.
The excitement is high in the NASA command center, the scientists applaud and congratulate each other with tears in their eyes.
The rover will enter a “sleep” state tonight, during which time it will charge its batteries and check onboard equipment to make sure all systems are working, said Jessica Samuels, NASA’s Surface Mission Manager.
UPGRADE The rover entered the atmosphere of Mars and slowed. It is located 15 km above sea level.
The parachute opened. NASA has published a simulation of the damping process.
The initial news
The site chosen to land the Perseverance rover is Jezero Crater, a 45-kilometer-diameter crater that scientists believe is well suited to preserving traces of life spanning billions of years, if life ever existed on Mars, writes the New York Times.
The landing is scheduled for 22.55 (Romanian time). The rover will descend through the rarefied atmosphere of Mars at a speed of about 20,000 km / h. A parachute and some thrusters will slow down to 3 km / h, then the rover will be left on the ground with cables connected to the vehicle that transported it.
Perseverance, in turn, leads a vehicle, the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter, which will attempt its first controlled flight to another planet, according to NASA.
During the descent, the rover will send updates on its status, but, in case the main antenna is not directed towards Earth, the direct communication will consist of a series of sounds.
“These sounds tell us various things, like the heat shield has closed, etc.,” said Allen Chen, the engineer coordinating the landing portion of the mission.
Perseverance can send photos of the surface of Mars through the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which orbits the planet, but this takes several hours.
Why is amartization so difficult?
Going down and slowing down from 20,000 km / h will take 7 minutes. NASA calls this interval “the 7 minute terror,” from the rover’s entry into the Martian atmosphere to damping.
Transmitting a radio signal from Mars to Earth takes 11 minutes, so the rover has to do everything itself, because if something happened during landing maneuvers, there would be no time for the engineering team on Earth to receive signal and respond with a command.
“Perseverance has to work on its own,” said Matt Wallace, one of the project managers.
Why is there so much “congestion” on Mars?
The Perseverance Rover is the third vehicle sent from Earth to land on Mars this month. China and the United Arab Emirates have sent space missions to Mars, which have arrived safely.
Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson explained this “congestion in a Facebook post.
“In case you didn’t know, every 26 months a launch window opens between Earth and Mars, allowing a spacecraft to travel the distance with minimal fuel consumption. This allows for higher loads.
This specific path is called a Hohmann Transfer. So everyone who goes to Mars leaves and arrives at roughly the same time. In the current window of opportunity, the United Arab Emirates, China and the United States will send samples to Mars, “wrote deGrasse Tyson.
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Corrected news
In an earlier version of the text the distance of 220 million kilometers that Perseverance traveled from Earth to Mars was mentioned. The correct distance is 480 million kilometers, according to NASA data. I made the correction.
Editor: Bogdan Pacurar
