The Mars 2020 descent stage lowers NASA’s Perseverance rover onto the Red Planet on Feb. 18, 2021. The image is from video captured by a camera aboard the descent stage. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech
The rover has racked up a series of accomplishments, including new distance
records, as it reaches the end of the first of several planned science
campaigns on the Red Planet.
NASA’s Perseverance rover has notched up a slew of firsts since touching
down on Mars one year ago, on Feb. 18, 2021, and the six-wheeled scientist has
other important accomplishments in store as it speeds toward its new
destination and a new science campaign.
Weighing roughly 1 ton (1,025 kilograms), Perseverance is the heaviest
rover ever to touch down on Mars, returning dramatic video of its landing.
The rover collected the first rock core samples from another planet (it’s
carrying six so far), served as an indispensable base station for Ingenuity,
the first helicopter on Mars, and tested MOXIE (Mars Oxygen
In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment), the first prototype oxygen generator
on the Red Planet.
Perseverance also recently broke a record for the most distance driven by a
Mars rover in a single day, traveling almost 1,050 feet (320 meters) on Feb.
14, 2022, the 351st Martian day, or sol, of the mission. And it performed the
entire drive using AutoNav, the self-driving
software that allows Perseverance to find its own path
around rocks and other obstacles.
Perseverance snapped
this view of a hill called “Santa Cruz” on April 29, 2021. About 20 inches (50
centimeters) across on average, the boulders in the foreground are among the
type of rocks the rover team has named “Ch’ał” (the Navajo term for “frog” and
pronounced “chesh”). Perseverance will return to the area next week or so. Credits:
NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS
The rover has nearly wrapped up its first science campaign in Jezero
Crater, a location that contained a lake billions of years ago and features
some of the oldest rocks Mars scientists have been able to study up close.
Rocks that have recorded and preserved environments that once hosted water are
prime locations to search for signs of ancient microscopic life.
Using a drill on the end of its
robotic arm and a complex sample
collection system in its belly, Perseverance is
snagging rock cores from the crater floor – the first step in the Mars Sample Return campaign.
“The samples Perseverance has been collecting will provide a key chronology
for the formation of Jezero Crater,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate
administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. “Each one is
carefully considered for its scientific value.”
Counting the Eons
Two more samples will be collected in coming weeks from the “Ch’ał” rock
type (named with the Navajo term for “frog”), a set of dark, rubbly rocks
representative of what’s seen across much of the crater floor. If samples of
these rocks are returned to Earth, scientists think they could provide an age
range for Jezero’s formation and the lake that once resided there.
Scientists can approximate the age of a planet or moon’s surface by counting its impact craters. Older surfaces have had more time to accumulate impact craters of various sizes. In the case of the Moon, scientists were able to refine their estimates by analyzing Apollo lunar samples. They’ve taken those lessons to narrow down the age estimates of surfaces on Mars. But having rock samples from the Red Planet would improve crater-based estimates of how old the surface is – and help them find more pieces of the puzzle that is Mars’ geological history.
NASA’s Mars 2020
Perseverance mission captured thrilling footage of the rover landing in Mars’
Jezero Crater on Feb. 18, 2021. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech
“Right now, we take what we know about the age of impact craters on the
Moon and extrapolate that to Mars,” said Katie Stack Morgan, Perseverance’s
deputy project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern
California, which manages the rover mission. “Bringing back a sample from this
heavily cratered surface in Jezero could provide a tie-point to calibrate the
Mars crater dating system independently, instead of relying solely on the lunar
one.”
The mission hasn’t been without challenges. The rover’s first attempt at drilling a rock
core came up empty, prompting an extensive testing
campaign to better understand fragile rocks. The team
also needed to clear out pebbles that had dropped
into the part of the sampling system that holds the drill bits.
Perseverance’s airborne companion, NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter, has proven
similarly plucky: It was grounded for almost a month following a dust storm
before recently resuming its flights. Originally slated to fly five times, the
rotorcraft has successfully completed 19 flights now, providing a new
perspective of Martian terrain and helping Perseverance’s team to plan the path
ahead.
To the west of “Octavia E. Butler
Landing,” where Perseverance started its journey, are the
remains of a fan-shaped delta formed by an ancient river as it fed the lake in
Jezero Crater. Deltas accumulate sediment over time, potentially trapping
organic matter and possible biosignatures – signs of life – that may be in the
environment. That makes this destination, which the mission expects to reach
this summer, a highlight of the year to come.
More About the Mission
A key objective for Perseverance’s mission on Mars is astrobiology, including the search
for signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will characterize the planet’s
geology and past climate, pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet,
and be the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith (broken
rock and dust).
Subsequent NASA missions, in cooperation with ESA (European Space Agency),
would send spacecraft to Mars to collect these sealed samples from the surface
and return them to Earth for in-depth analysis.
The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission is part of NASA’s Moon to Mars
exploration approach, which includes Artemis missions to the
Moon that will help prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet.
JPL, which is managed for NASA by Caltech in Pasadena, California, built
and manages operations of the Perseverance rover.
For more about Perseverance: mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/ and nasa.gov/perseverance
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