The latest data from the six-wheeled robot since it went down yesterday includes a series of images captured when the rover’s “jet pack” knocked it to the ground.
Less than a day after NASA’s Perseverance 2020 marker NASA landed on the surface of Mars, engineers and scientists at the group’s Southern California Jet Dedication Laboratory were diligent, awaiting the next broadcasts from Perseverance . As data gradually came in, broadcast by a number of spacecraft orbiting the Red Planet, the Sustainability team was relieved to see the rover’s health reports, which showed that her appearance appeared to be everything worked as expected.
Adding to the excitement was a high-resolution image taken as the rover landed. While a Mars rover reversed NASA’s Curiosity a stop-motion film of his descendants, Perseverance cameras are supposed to capture video of his situation and this new image was taken from that film, which is still being distributed to Earth and processed.
Unlike rovers in the past, most Perseverance cameras capture images in color. After landing, two of the Hazard Cameras (Hazcams) captured scenes from the front and rear of the rover, showing one of its wheels in the Martian dirt. Perseverance gained a close-up view from NASA’s eye in space, as well as: NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance. Orbiter, which used a special high-resolution camera to capture the spacecraft sailing into a Jezero Crater, with its parachute sliding behind it. The High Resolution Camera Experiment (HiRISE) did the same for Curiosity in 2012. JPL leads the mission of the orbiter, while the HiRISE instrument is led by the University of Arizona.
Several pyrotechnic charges are expected to fire later on Friday, releasing the Perseverance mast (“rover’s head”) from where it is based on the rover’s deck. The Navigation Cameras (Navcams), which are used for propulsion, share space on the mast with two science cameras: the zoomable Mastcam-Z and a laser device called SuperCam. The mast is expected to be lifted on Saturday, Feb. 20, after which the Navcams are expected to provide panoramas of the rover’s deck and surroundings.
In the coming days, engineers will pore over the rover’s system data, update its software and start testing its various instruments. In the following weeks, Perseverance will test his robotic arm and take his first short scratch. It will take at least a month or two for Perseverance to find a flat place to unleash Ingenuity, the miniature helicopter attached to the rover’s belly, and even longer before it hits the final road, embarking on its mission science and first discovered a sample of Martian rock and sediment.
More about the mission
It is a key objective for the Perseverance mission on Mars astrobiology research, including the detection of signs of microbial old life. The rover marks the geology of the planet and the climate of the past and is the first mission to collect and chew Martian rock and regolith, paving the way for human exploration. on the Red Planet.
NASA’s subsequent missions, in collaboration with ESA (European Space Agency), send spacecraft to Mars to collect these preserved samples from the surface and bring them back to Earth for miniature in-depth study.
The Mars 2020 Sustainability mission is part of NASA’s Moon to Mars exploration approach, which includes Artemis missions to the Moon that will help prepare for a human exploration of the Red Planet.
JPL, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, will manage the Mars 2020 Sustainability mission and the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter technology demonstration for NASA.
For more about Sustainability:
mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/
nasa.gov/perseverance
Contact news media
Anndra Math
Jet Dedication Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-393-2433
[email protected]
Alana Johnson / Gray Hautaluoma
NASA Headquarters, Washington
202-672-4780 / 202-358-0668
[email protected]/[email protected]