Main image via Twitter + Space.com
History has been made today!
After travelling over 470 million km, NASA’s Perseverance rover has landed safely on Mars!
Image via TechCrunch
Affectionately called “Percy” by the mission’s team, the spacecraft landed on the Red Planet at 4.55am on 19th February, mission control confirmed.
Immediately after touchdown, the NASA Perseverance rover sent images of its landing site on the Jezero Crater. You can even see the rover’s shadow on the surface!
Percy has been on an incredible journey.
Over six months ago, the rover began its adventure across nearly 480 million km, a feat for the spacecraft and its team as they prepared for the final stages of the mission during a pandemic.
“This landing is one of those pivotal moments dor NASA, the United States, and space exploration globally – when we know we are on the cusp of discovery and sharpening our pencils, so to speak, to rewrite the textbooks,” acting NASA Administrator Steve Jurczyk said.
“The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission embodies our nation’s spirit of persevering even in the most challenging of situations, inspiring, and advancing science and exploration,” he continued. “The mission itself personifies the human ideal of persevering toward the future and will help us prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet in the 2030s.”
Peseverance’s mission is indeed a historic one. It’s one that would be able to search for evidence to give us answers to questions we’ve always wondered about the universe.
The rover will be the first to search for signs of ancient life on Mars, the first helicopter fly on another planet, and the first recordings of sound on the red planet.
The spacecraft is the most sophisticated rover that NASA has built to date and it has a packed itinerary for the next few years.
Perseverance will explore the Jezero Crater which is the site of an ancient lake that existed 3.9 billions years ago. It will also search for microfossils in the rocks and soil there.
By the 2030s, follow up missions will return the samples collected by Perseverance to Earth.
That’s not all the rover will do.
Perseverance is not alone on its journey.
The spacecraft carries a small drone called Ingenuity. Once system checks are done, Perseverance will drive to an open field, unfold its belly panels, and lower the little helicopter for the first controlled flight on another planet.
The rover will attempt to record videos of the drone’s flight which could be the first demonstration of a new way to explore other planets.
Image via Space.com
Perseverance’s mission will also test technologies that could support future human expeditions to Mars.
The spacecraft’s sophisticated landing-navigation system is the first of its kind and similar technology could be relied on by future Mars astronauts
On top of that, the rover also carries a device that can convert carbon dioxide into oxygen.
The device is called the Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilisation Experiment (MOXIE) and is a prototype meant to test the technology on the planet.
“Because of today’s exciting events, the first pristine samples from carefully documented locations on another planet are another step closer to being returned to Earth, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate Thomas Zurbuchen said.
“Perseverance is the first step in bringing back rock and regolith from Mars,” he said. “We don’t know what these pristine samples from Mars will tell us. But what they could tell us is monumental – including that life might have once existed beyond Earth.”
Congratulations Peserverance!
We’re excited to see what discoveries the rover will make! Will it find life on Mars? Time will tell…
What do you think Peseverance will discover on the Red Planet? Let us know!
Info via Business Insider + CNN