What to expect when the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover arrives on the Red Planet on February 18, 2021.
With about 2.4 million miles (3.9 million kilometers) left to travel in space, NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance mission is days away from attempting to land the agency’s fifth rover on the Red Planet. Engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, where the mission is operated, have confirmed that the spacecraft is healthy and is on target to arrive at Jezero Crater on Feb. Nations. , 2021.
“Perseverance is NASA’s most ambitious Mars rover mission to date, scientifically aimed at finding out if there was ever life on Mars in the past,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA’s Washington headquarters. . “To answer this question, the landing team will have their hands full taking us to Jezero Crater – the most challenging Martian terrain ever intended for a landing.”
Jezero is a basin where scientists believe that an ancient river flowed into a lake and deposited sediments in a fan shape known as a delta. Scientists think the environment here likely preserved signs of every life that took hold billions of years ago – but Jezero also has steep cliffs, sand dunes, and cobblestone fields. Landing on Mars is difficult – only about 50% of all previous landing attempts on Mars have been successful – and these geological features make it even more. The Perseverance team builds on lessons from previous touchdowns and applies new technologies that allow the spacecraft to more precisely target its landing site and autonomously avoid hazards.
“The Perseverance team is finalizing the complex choreography needed to land in Jezero Crater,” said Jennifer Trosper, Deputy Project Manager for the Mission at JPL. “Mars landing is not guaranteed, but we have been preparing for a decade to place the wheels of this rover on the surface of Mars and get to work.”
You’ll see the drama of Perseverance’s Entry, Descent, and Landing (EDL) – the riskiest part of the rover’s mission that some engineers call the “seven minutes of terror” – live on NASA TV. Commentary will begin at 2:15 pm EST (11:15 am PST) on Feb. 18. Engineers expect to be notified of key landing milestones at the estimated times below. (Because of the distance the signals must travel from Mars to Earth, these events actually occur 11 minutes, 22 seconds earlier than what is reported here on Mars.)
Cruise stage divorce: The portion of the spacecraft that has persistently flown – with NASA’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter attached to its abdomen – through space during the last six and a half months will arrive at approximately 3:38 p.m. EST (12:38 p.m. PST).
Attractive entrance: The spacecraft is expected to reach the top of Mars’ atmosphere at about 12,100 mph (19,500 kph) at 3:48 p.m. EST (12:48 p.m. PST).
Peak heating: Friction from the atmosphere will warm the spacecraft’s bottom to temperatures as high as about 2,370 degrees Fahrenheit (about 1,300 degrees Celsius) at 3:49 p.m. EST (12:49 p.m. PST).
Parachute deployment: The spacecraft will deploy its parachute at supersonic speed at around 3:52 PM EST (12:52 PM PST). The exact deployment time is based on the new Range Trigger technology, which improves the precision of the spacecraft’s ability to hit a landing target.
Heat shield separation: The protective bottom of the entrance capsule will come off approximately 20 seconds after deploying the parachute. This allows the rover to use a radar to determine how far it is from the ground and use its Terrain-Relative Navigation technology to find a safe landing site.
Back shell separation: The rear half of the access capsule attached to the parachute will separate from the rover and its “jetpack” (known as the descent phase) at 3:54 PM EST (12:54 AM PST). The jetpack uses retrorockets to slow down and fly to the landing site.
Touchdown: The descent of the spacecraft, using the aerial crane’s maneuver, will lower the rover to the surface on nylon cords. The rover is expected to land on the surface of Mars at around 3:55 p.m. EST (12:55 p.m. PST) at human walking speed (about 1.7 mph or 2.7 km / h).
A variety of factors can affect the precise timing of the milestones mentioned above, including properties of the Martian atmosphere that are difficult to predict until the spacecraft actually flies through them.
Mission controllers may also not be able to confirm these milestones at the times listed above due to the complexity of deep-space communications. The stream of detailed technical data (called telemetry) in near real-time depends on a new kind of relay capability added to NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) over the past year. Engineers expect additional data to return directly to Earth via NASA’s Deep Space Network and two other Earth-based antennas until shortly before landing.
It’s important to note that the rover can safely land on Mars without communicating with Earth: Perseverance has pre-programmed landing instructions and significant autonomy. Additional communication cards are scheduled in the hours and days after landing.
Once on the surface, one of Perseverance’s first activities will be to take pictures of its new home and return it to Earth. In the coming days, engineers will also monitor the rover’s health and deploy the remote sensing mast (also known as the “head”) so that it can take more photos. The Perseverance team will then need more than a month to thoroughly inspect the rover and load new flight software in preparation for its search for ancient life on Mars. During the same period, the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter team will prepare their tiny but mighty robot for the first attempt at a controlled, powered aerodynamic flight on another planet.
“The Ingenuity team is on the edge of our seat with the Perseverance team on landing day,” said MiMi Aung, JPL’s Ingenuity project manager. “We can’t wait for the rover and the helicopter to both be safely on the surface of Mars and ready for action.”
More about the persistence mission
A primary objective of Perseverance’s mission on Mars is astrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will characterize past geology and climate, pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet, and will be the first mission to collect and store Martian rock and sediment for later return to Earth.
Subsequent NASA missions, in collaboration 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 mission is part of a larger NASA initiative that includes missions to the moon as a way to prepare for human exploration of the red planet. NASA will establish a sustained human presence on and around the moon through NASA’s lunar research plans for Artemis.
JPL, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, is managing the Mars 2020 Perseverance mission and the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter technology demonstration for NASA.
The Perseverance landing press kit can be found at:
go.nasa.gov/perseverance-landing-press-kit
A press kit for Ingenuity can be found at:
go.nasa.gov/ingenuity-press-kit