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The difficult landing maneuver is supposed to be the beginning of a multi-year search for traces of past life on Mars. “Perseverance” (“Resistance”) is the largest vehicle that has ever been brought to Mars. It weighs a ton, has a robotic arm about two meters long, 19 cameras and two microphones. If “Perseverance” lands intact, it would only be the fifth Mars rover to have successfully mastered the long journey from Earth. All were built by the United States, the last one so far – «Curiosity»- is still in use. The “Opportunity” rover was launched in February 2019 abandoned after a dust storm.
According to NASA scientist Ken Farley, the landing site for “Perseverance” is “spectacular.” The Jezero crater with a diameter of 45 kilometers is located in the northern hemisphere of Mars. It has been repeatedly considered a landing site for pre-Mars missions, but has been discarded as too difficult.
Due to the corona pandemic, fewer people will be sitting in NASA’s Mars 2020 mission control room than usual. “But if we have confirmation of the landing, I don’t think Covid can stop us from jumping up and down and stretching our fists,” says “Mars 2020” deputy project manager Matt Wallace.
First there are photos, then videos
After landing, “Perseverance” should quickly send the first photos of the crater’s surface and then the video recordings. Scientists assume that a river flowed into a lake in Jezero crater about 3.5 billion years ago.
During this time, Mars was “very similar to Earth in some important ways,” says Farley. “It had a strong atmosphere, it had lakes and rivers on its surface, and it had habitable habitats in which the organisms we now know on earth could have thrived.”
Cost: $ 2.4 billion
Mars is the only known planet that has had such conditions. “Mars 2020” is the first mission with the express goal of finding evidence that life ever existed on Mars. NASA spends about $ 2.4 billion on it.
Over several years, the rover will collect rock and soil samples from the old river delta in Jezero crater, along the old lake shore, and finally at the crater rim, which will be brought back to earth for analysis. The rover reaches a speed of 152 meters per hour, which makes it faster than any of its predecessors on Mars.
Enough work for future generations
The collected samples could be brought to earth as part of a joint mission planned by NASA and the European space agency ESA in the 2030s. “The scientists who will analyze these samples are still going to school today,” says the scientist from the NASA Farley. “Maybe they weren’t even born.”
The “perseverance” looks for organic molecules and other signs of previous microbial life. At the same time, you should also conduct experiments. Also, NASA wants to fly a motorized plane on another planet for the first time.
In “Mars 2020,” a system will also be developed to develop oxygen from the Martian atmosphere, which consists primarily of carbon dioxide. In this way, the mission could pave the way for manned missions to Mars.
