The planet Mars has been the one
other neighboring celestial body after the moon which space programs from
countries on Earth have focused exploratory attempts, if they have the
capacity. Over the decades there have been numerous missions to the Red Planet,
from space probes performing flybys, to orbiters keeping regular vigilance
above, to landers that would actually alight on a fixed spot of the surface to
probe, and finally rovers that can move around to examine more. There have been
failures and successes, and the latter is almost always celebrated, much like
what happened in NASA following Thursday’s triumph.
By that we mean the successful
touchdown of Perseverance, the latest rover probe to be sent to explore Mars.
Launched on the penultimate day of January, it successfully landed at its
specific destination on the Jezero Crater this February 18 as told by The Verge. From there it will
commence a new journey to look for possible signs that life existed on the Red
Planet long ago. So long as its power source holds out and no significant damage
was sustained, the Perseverance probe could be at this mission for NASA for
several years on.
“Perseverance is safely on the
surface of Mars ready to begin seeking the signs of past life,” announced Swati
Mohan, speaking for NASA’s Entry, Descent and Landing team. They had the key
duty of seeing the rover, in its re-entry shell, all through the “seven minutes
of terror” period wherein it penetrated the Martian atmosphere at speeds of
12,100 miles per hour, before a parachute and six rocket thrusters slowed it
down. Stopping to hover 66 feet from the red surface of Jezero Crater, the
descent stage then lowered Perseverance by cables, which the rover then cut off
upon landing.
Designed and built at a cost of
about $2.7 billion, Perseverance is a mobile laboratory about the size of an
SUV, kitted with laser-beam cameras to analyze Martian rocks, soil sample
collector, a machine that will attempt to create Oxygen (O2) from the carbon
dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere, and even a solar-powered helicopter probe
named Ingenuity, to test the first ever powered flight on a planet outside of
Earth. Considered for the future is a sample return mission, where a spacecraft
from the European Space Agency (ESA) that could be launched in 2026 will travel
to Mars to pick up Perseverance’s Martian soil samples. All this looks forward
to an optimistic timetable where manned space missions could ultimately go to
Mars by the 2030s.
Image courtesy of NASA
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