NASA’s Perseverance Rover a Precursor for ‘Boots on Mars’

By Bob Granath

When NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover launched it marked the continuation of exploration of one of Earth’s nearest celestial neighbors that began 56 years ago. During that time, a fleet of robotic spacecraft and rovers have landed on and orbited the Red Planet. Collectively, they have dramatically increased the knowledge base about Mars, helping pave the way for future human pioneers.

A part of NASA’s Mars Exploration Program, Perseverance is designed to addresses high-priority science goals such as answering key questions about the potential for life on the planet.

Liftoff from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station’s Launch Complex 41 was at 7:50 a.m. EDT on July 30. The 200-foot-tall Untied Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket with a Centaur upper stage propelled the spacecraft to a speed of 24,785 mph for its 442-million-mile, seven-month trip to the Mars.

“It’s hard to describe the feeling of pride and accomplishment — mixed with the excitement and nervous apprehension — that goes with this final stage of the mission,” said John Calvert, Mars 2020 mission manager for NASA’s Launch Services Program based at the Kennedy Space Center.

The Perseverance spacecraft is a robotic “scientist” the size of a compact car, weighing just under 2,300 pounds. The agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, built the rover and will manage operations of the mission planned for at least one Mars year — about 687 Earth days.

In a prelaunch news conference, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine noted that the Mars 2020 mission would address key questions about the potential for life on Mars.

“This is the first time in history that NASA has dedicated a mission to what we call ‘astrobiology’ – the search for life on another world,” he said.

Perseverance also will study aspects of the geologic and climatic history of Mars that are relevant to questions surrounding habitability in the planet’s past and present.

The spacecraft is scheduled to land on February 18, 2021. Scientists selected the Jezero Crater as the landing site for the Perseverance rover because it may reveal evidence of past or present life. That confidence is based on the fact that it is a former lakebed with a river that flowed into it.

Between 3 to 4 billion years ago, a river flowed into a body of water the size of Lake Tahoe on the state line between Nevada and California. The river deposited sediments packed with carbonite minerals and clay. The Perseverance science team believes this ancient river delta may have collected and preserved organic molecules and other potential signs of microbial life.

The rover is equipped with a drill that can collect core samples of the most promising rocks and soils to be set aside and stored in a “cache.” The plan is to launch a robotic Mars Sample Return Mission in 2026 to retrieve the samples for study back on Earth.

While the rover digs into the surface, a twin-rotor, solar-powered helicopter designed to look down on the area will become the first aircraft to fly on another world. Attached to the belly of the rover is NASA’s Mars helicopter named, Ingenuity, as it is a marvel of engineering.

The Ingenuity helicopter weighs about 4 pounds and is a technology experiment. Håvard Grip, the helicopter’s chief pilot at JPL, will remotely control the aircraft.

“The Wright Brothers showed that powered flight in Earth’s atmosphere was possible, using an experimental aircraft,” he said. “With Ingenuity, we’re trying to do the same for Mars.”

When it attempts its test flights in spring 2021, Ingenuity will remain within a 0.6-mile radius of Perseverance so it can communicate wirelessly with the rover. Perseverance then will communicate with satellites orbiting Mars that relay the signals back to Earth.

While the rover studies the Martian environment, it also will demonstrate technologies that address the challenges of future human expedition on Mars.

These experiments will include testing a method for producing oxygen from the Martian carbon dioxide atmosphere, identifying resources such as subsurface water and improving landing techniques. The rover also will characterize weather, dust and other potential environmental conditions that could affect future astronauts living and working on the Red Planet.

The goal of human exploration of Mars dates back to science fiction writers telling fanciful stories about encounters with “Martians.” However, Wernher von Braun published the first detailed study of the engineering challenges of an actual trip to the Red Planet in his 1952 book, The Mars Project.

Von Braun began writing the manuscript in 1947 while working for the U.S. Army at Fort Bliss, in El Paso, Texas. At the time, he was helping launch rockets to the edge of space at the nearby White Sands Proving Ground in New Mexico.

In his book, von Braun suggested that a mission to Mars would require a fleet of spacecraft, noting that when Christopher Columbus sailed from Spain in 1492, it was with three ships.

“So it is with interplanetary exploration,” he wrote, “it must be done on a grand scale.”

The actual exploration of Mars began a half-century ago with the Nov. 28, 1964, launch of Mariner 4, the first successful mission to the planet. It was one of the early successes for NASA, returning the first photographs of another planet from a range of 6,118 miles. A report by the JPL team that managed the flight, stated that the surface was pockmarked much like the Moon.

“There were more than 70 clearly distinguishable craters ranging in diameter from 4 to 120 km (2.5 to 74.5 miles),” the report said.

More recently, Kennedy Space Center Director Bob Cabana explained that the agency is moving to a new era in space travel.

“It was an incredible accomplishment when we went to the Moon,” he said, “We stayed for a couple of days and took some rocks home. We explored.”

Cabana, a former Space Shuttle astronaut, noted that explorers leave a nice, safe environment. They go off to an extreme environment for a short period of time, gather information and return.

“But, now we want to be pioneers,” he said. “As pioneers, we will create a sustained human presence in a more extreme environment.”

In the agency’s first half-century, the focus was on quick trips to space for hours, then days followed by weeks and months, primarily close to Earth and the Moon, just a few travel days away.

“We don’t just want to go explore,” Cabana said, “we want put boots on Mars as pioneers. We want to establish a presence in the solar system.”

From Explorers to Pioneers

“It was an incredible accomplishment when we went to the Moon,” said Kennedy Space Center Director Bob Cabana. “But, now we want to be pioneers. As pioneers, we will create a sustained human presence in a more extreme environment. We don’t just want to go explore, we want put boots on Mars as pioneers. We want to establish a presence in the solar system.” Photo credit: NASA

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NASA’s Perseverance Rover Heads for Mars

Check out this short video of the liftoff of NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover as it begins a seven-month, 442-million-mile trip to the Red Planet.

Video courtesy of NASA’s Kennedy Space Center