Perseverance is safely kept away in the aeroshell, just experiencing room temperature.
Washington:
Seven months after an explosion, NASA’s Mars Mars 2020 mission has to negotiate the shortest and most intense time on Thursday: the “seven minutes of horror” it will take to hit the brakes and land the Perseverance rover on a narrow target on the surface of the planet. .
Entry, takeoff, and landing (EDL) begins when the Sustainability-carrying spacecraft hits the Martian atmosphere at nearly 12,500 miles per hour (20,000 kilometers per hour).
It ends about seven minutes later with the rover resting on the surface.
Touchdown on the Jezero Crater is scheduled for 3:55 pm Eastern US time (2055 GMT). The weather so far appears favorable in the spring of the northern Martian hemisphere, but nothing like that is taken.
“This is one of the most difficult maneuvers we are making in this industry, and nearly 50 percent of the spacecraft sent to the surface of Mars has failed,” said Matt Wallace, vice-president. mission project manager.
Atmospheric input
Ten minutes before she enters the Martian atmosphere, the spacecraft shears its stage of flight provided by the fuel tanks, radios and solar panels on the mission.
It’s left with just a protective aeroshell, carrying the level of the rover and the descent, and fires thrushes to make sure its heat shield is forward-looking.
At an altitude of about 80 miles (130 kilometers), it moves into the atmosphere and things get hot: peak heating occurs in about 80 seconds when the surface of the heat shield reaches 2,370 degrees Fahrenheit (approx. 1,300 degrees Celsius).
Persistence is safely maintained in the aeroshell, simply experiencing room temperature.
The craft may need to fire thrushes to stay on course while hitting air pockets.
Parachute use
Once the spacecraft has slowed to less than 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) per hour, it is time to use a 70.5 foot (21.5 meter) wide supersonic parachute at a height of seven miles. (11 kilometers).
Perseverance uses a new technology called Range Trigger that decides the exact moment to use, based on the position of the craft compared to the landing site.
When asked to name the single most critical event, NASA EDL director Allen Chen said: “Of course there is a lot of danger in opening a supersonic parachute.”
To test its new design, NASA had to conduct extensive supersonic parachute experiments from high altitudes here on Earth, a field of research that had been dormant since the 1970s.
Heat shield separation
Next, the spacecraft moves its heat shield, about 20 seconds after the parachute is inserted. The rover is exposed to the atmosphere for the first time, and uses a landing radar to kick signals off the surface and work out the correct height.
The mission will also see another technology used for the first time: the “Terrain Relative Navigation” (TRN) system which uses a special camera to identify surface features and compare them to an on-board map where engineers were working. pre-programming the safest landing site.
“That gives us a look at our vehicle, and the ability to see where it’s going and find out where it is,” Chen said.
Descendants with power
In the shallow atmosphere of Mars, the parachute can only get the vehicle down to 200 miles (300 kilometers) per hour – so the durability of the chip has to be cut loose, the rear shell let go, and rocket launchers used to fly it. let down.
It does this by using an eight-engine jetpack that is mounted just above the rover and fires up at about 6,900 feet (2100 meters) above the surface.
The vehicle must immediately tilt so that the parachute and rear shell do not fall, and then use its solemn systems to continue descending.
Skycrane
With 12 seconds to go, at a height of 66 feet (20 meters), the rocket-powered descent will reduce the downward movement by using long cables in a movement called a “skycrane.”
The rover locks its legs and wheels into a lying position and touches the ground at just under two miles (1.2 kilometers) per hour, while the descent rate flies off and landing under his own control.
Perseverance is now set for its mission as the fifth rover on Earth on Mars.
(Except for the headline, this story was not edited by NDTV staff and is published from syndicated food.)