NASA's next-generation rover, named Perseverance, has blasted off from Florida's Cape Canaveral to begin its journey to the Red Planet. The US spacecraft will scour Mars for signs of ancient life.
Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech
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The $2.5-billion (€2.1-billion) spacecraft, which launched atop an Atlas V rocket on Thursday, is due to reach Mars in February next year.
The robotic rover has an ambitious mission — to search for signs of ancient microbial life on Mars. Equipped with a helicopter drone, the car-sized craft is designed to study the planet's climate and geology, and collect rock and soil samples.
"This is the first time in history where we're going to go to Mars with an explicit mission to find life on another world — ancient life on Mars," NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine said on Wednesday.
Why is this Mars mission different? – DW speaks to NASA scientist Mitch Schulte
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Technical difficulties
After the launch, NASA reported that the spacecraft had encountered some technical difficulties.
"Data indicate the spacecraft had entered a state known as safe mode, likely because a part of the spacecraft was a little colder than expected while Mars 2020 was in Earth's shadow," NASA said.
When a vessel enters safe mode, it shuts down all but essential systems until it receives new commands from mission control.
"Right now, the Mars 2020 mission is completing a full health assessment on the spacecraft and is working to return the spacecraft to a nominal configuration for its journey to Mars," NASA added.
Perseverance also experienced a delay in setting up its communications link with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, its mission control.
But Matt Wallace, the mission's deputy project manager, said the issues were not too serious and that the spaceship entering safe mode was not a cause for concern.
"That's perfectly fine, the spacecraft is happy there," he said. "The team is working through that telemetry, they're going to look through the rest of the spacecraft health."
'We know how to land on Mars'
The US space agency has previously launched eight successful Mars landings. Its Perseverance mission is part of the Artemis program, which aims to establish a human presence on the moon by 2028, as a stepping stone for human missions to Mars after 2030.
Scientists believe the fourth planet from the sun could have hosted life more than 3 billion years ago when it was covered in rivers and lakes and was much warmer than today.
Perseverance is due to land at the base of a 250-meter-deep (820-foot-deep) basin called the Jezero Crater. Scientists believe there's a chance that the site, a former river delta, preserved organic molecules and evidence of microbial life.
NASA's rover Perseverance has landed on Mars
Perseverance is NASA's fifth Mars rover and its biggest and heaviest to date. Its mission on the Red Planet has started this Thursday.
Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech
A new rover for the red planet
NASA's Mars 2020 Perseverance rover (shown in artist's illustration) is the most sophisticated rover NASA has ever sent to Mars. Ingenuity, a technology experiment, will be the first aircraft to attempt controlled flight on another planet. Perseverance touched down at Mars' Jezero Crater on February 18, 2021 at about 20:57 UTC with Ingenuity attached to its belly.
Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Everything prepared
NASA engineers loaded the Mars rover Perseverance onto an Atlas V rocket at the start of July 2020. The rocket took off on July 30 from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The rover arrived at the orbit around Mars in early February 2021.
Image: NASA
Presentation in a clean room
This is how Perseverance looked when it was presented to the public in 2019. The rover will support NASA's Curiosity rover, the most modern rover until Perseverance came along. The new rover weighs a little over a ton — 100 kg (220 pounds) more than its predecessor. And at 3 meters (10 ft) long, it's also 10 centimeters longer as well.
Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech
More performance
Perseverance can be loaded with more research instruments and sensors than its predecessor. And its gripper arm, with its cameras and tools, is stronger, too. The rover can collect samples from Mars. It's got 23 cameras and many other instruments. One mission is to test whether it's possible to extract oxygen from Martian rock. But, hey, what's that standing next to the rover on the ground?
Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech
A small drone
That's right! Perseverance has a helicopter onboard. That's never happened on a planetary mission before. The helicopter is completely new territory for its developers. It will be the first time they're able to experience and collect data from flight in atmospheric conditions that are different from those on Earth, and in a gravity that is about a third of our own.
Image: NASA/Cory Huston
The robotic giant
Curiosity is the largest and most modern of all Mars rovers currently deployed. It landed on August 6, 2012, and has since traveled more than 21 kilometers (13 miles). It is much more than just a rover. Its official name is "Mars Science Laboratory," and it really is a complete lab on wheels.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/Nasa/Jpl-Caltech/Msss
What's in it?
For example, it contains a special spectrometer, which can analyze chemical compounds from a distance with the help of a laser; a complete meteorological station that can measure temperature, atmospheric pressure, radiation, humidity and wind speed; and most importantly, a chemistry lab that can run detailed analyses of organic compounds and is always on the hunt for traces of alien life.
Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Not just scratching the surface
Curiosity has shown that life would theoretically be possible on Mars. But it hasn't discovered any life, yet. The robot's arm is equipped with a full power drill. Here, it's taking a sample in "Yellowknife Bay" inside the Gale Crater.
Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Off to the lab!
The Mars dust is processed by a large number of instruments. First, it's filtered and separated into different-sized particles. Then, those get sorted and sent off to different analytical laboratory machines.
Image: picture alliance/AP Photo/NASA
A tiny predecessor
Curiosity's predecessors were much smaller. On July 4, 1997, the small Mars rover Sojourner left its first tire tracks behind in the dust of the red planet. It was the first time a mobile robot had been left to its own devices there, equipped with an X-ray spectrometer to conduct chemical analyses and with optical cameras.
Image: NASA/JPL
Size comparison
Three rover generations. (The tiny one up front is Sojourner.) At 10.6 kilograms (23 pounds), it's not much bigger than a toy car. Its top speed: 1 centimeter per second. Opportunity weighs 185 kilograms — roughly the equivalent of an electric wheelchair. Curiosity is as big as a small car, at 900 kilograms. The big ones travel up to 4 or 5 centimeters per second.
Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Almost four months of duty
Sojourner travelled about 100 meters during its lifetime and delivered data and pictures until September 27, 1997. This is one of the last pictures of it, taken nine days before the radio connection broke down. Sojourner probably died because the battery did not survive the cold nights.
Image: NASA/JPL
Paving the way for tomorrow's technology
Without the experience of Sojourner, newer rovers could have hardly been envisaged. In 2004, NASA landed two robots of the same model on Mars: Spirit and Opportunity. Spirit survived for six years, travelling a distance of 7.7 kilometers. The robot climbed mountains, took soil samples and withstood winter and sandstorms. Its sibling, Opportunity, lost contact on February 13, 2019.
Image: picture alliance/dpa
Lots of gadgets
Opportunity passed the marathon distance of 42 kilometers back in 2015, and to this day, it has covered much more ground than Curiosity. It can take ground probes with its arm. It has three different spectrometers and even a 3D camera. It was last operating in "Perseverance Valley," an appropriate workplace for the sturdy robot, before being incapacitated by a sandstorm.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
The red planet's landscapes
This panorama was taken by Curiosity's mast camera. The most modern of the rovers will stay in service as long as possible — hopefully at least another five years. The Martian landscape looks familiar somehow, not unlike some deserts here on Earth. Should we give in to our wanderlust, then — or would it be better leave Mars to the robots?
Image: Reuters
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But to get there, the rover will have to pull off a complex maneuver — dubbed by engineers as the "seven minutes of terror" — to enter the Martian atmosphere. The robot will have to withstand extreme heat and speeds during its descent, before touching down with the help of supersonic parachutes and mini rocket engines.
"It's without question, a challenge. There's no other way to put it," Bridenstine said. "That being said, we know how to land on Mars, we've done it eight times already. This will be the ninth."
Perseverance is the third Mars mission in as many weeks, with China and the United Arab Emirates launching their own orbiters earlier this month. It is expected to stay on the planet for at least two years.
