Celebrating 2 years of Percy on Martian Surface
Perseverance rover with Ingenuity mini-helicopter
Overview
Human fascination with Mars has lasted for millennia. It continues to deepen in light of the landing of the Perseverance rover on the Martian surface in February, 2 years ago, after a 300 million mile, 7-month journey.
Perseverance, nicknamed ‘Percy,’ is a car-sized rover designed to explore the Jezero crater on mars as part of NASA’s 2020 Mars mission. It was manufactured by Jet Propulsion Laboratory and launched on July 30, 2020, at 11:50 UTC. Confirmation that the rover successfully landed on Mars was received on February 18, 2021, at 20:55 UTC. As of February 18, 2023, Perseverance completed 710 sols or 730 Earth days on Mars. The landing site where the rover landed was named Octavia E. Butler Landing.
Percy has some upgradation from its predecessors, Curiosity, but most of the design is kept the same. Percy carries 7 primary payload instruments, 19 Cameras and 2 microphones.
Perseverance also carried a mini-helicopter, ‘Ingenuity,’ an experimental aircraft and technology testbed that made the first powered flight on another planet on April 19, 2021. Till now, the helicopter successfully made 43 flights.
Perseverance, nicknamed ‘Percy,’ is a car-sized rover designed to explore the Jezero crater on mars as part of NASA’s 2020 Mars mission. It was manufactured by Jet Propulsion Laboratory and launched on July 30, 2020, at 11:50 UTC. Confirmation that the rover successfully landed on Mars was received on February 18, 2021, at 20:55 UTC. As of February 18, 2023, Perseverance completed 710 sols or 730 Earth days on Mars. The landing site where the rover landed was named Octavia E. Butler Landing.
Percy has some upgradation from its predecessors, Curiosity, but most of the design is kept the same. Percy carries 7 primary payload instruments, 19 Cameras and 2 microphones.
Perseverance also carried a mini-helicopter, ‘Ingenuity,’ an experimental aircraft and technology testbed that made the first powered flight on another planet on April 19, 2021. Till now, the helicopter successfully made 43 flights.
Mission
the mission path of Perseverance
The Perseverance rover has four main science objectives that support the Mars Exploration Program’s science goals:
· Looking for habitability: identify past environments capable of supporting microbial life.
· Seeking biosignature, seek signs of possible past microbial life in those habitable environments, particularly in specific rock types known to preserve signs over time.
· Caching samples: collect core rock and regolith (“soil”) samples and store them within the rover and on the Martian Surface (as a backup) for delivery to a future sample return rocket.
· Preparing for humans: test oxygen production from the Martian atmosphere.
· Looking for habitability: identify past environments capable of supporting microbial life.
· Seeking biosignature, seek signs of possible past microbial life in those habitable environments, particularly in specific rock types known to preserve signs over time.
· Caching samples: collect core rock and regolith (“soil”) samples and store them within the rover and on the Martian Surface (as a backup) for delivery to a future sample return rocket.
· Preparing for humans: test oxygen production from the Martian atmosphere.
Instruments
Primary instruments on Preseverance
As mentioned above, The rover carries 7 primary instruments. They all are mentioned below, along with their uses:
1) Mars Oxygen ISRU Experiment (MOXIE): an exploration technology investigation to produce a small amount of oxygen (O2) from Martian atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2). On April 20, 2021, 5.37 grams of oxygen were made in an hour, with nine more extractions planned over the course of two Earth years to further investigate the instrument. This technology could be scaled up for human life support or to make rocket fuel for return missions.
2) Planetary Instrument for X-Ray Lithochemistry (PIXL): an X-Ray fluorescence spectrometer to determine the fine-scale elemental composition of Martian surface materials.
3) Radar Imager for Mars’ subsurface experiment (RIMFAX): a ground-penetrating radar to image different ground densities, structural layers, buried rocks, and meteorites and detect underground water ice and salty brine at 10 m (33 ft) depth. The RIMFAX is being provided by the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (FFI).
4) Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer (MEDA): a set of sensors that measure temperature, wind speed and direction, pressure, relative humidity, radiation, and dust particle size and shape. It is provided by Spain’s Centro de Astrobiologia.
5) Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman and Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals (SHERLOC): an ultraviolet Raman spectrometer that uses fine-scale imaging and an ultraviolet (UV) laser to determine fine-scale mineralogy and detect organic compounds.
6) Mastcam-Z: a stereoscopic imaging system with the ability to zoom. Many photos were included in the published NASA photo gallery.
7) SuperCam: an instrument suite that can provide imaging, chemical composition analysis, and mineralogy in rocks and regolith from a distance. It is an upgraded version of the ChemCam on the Curiosity rover but with two lasers and four spectrometers that will allow it to remotely identify biosignatures and assess past habitability. SuperCam is used in conjunction with the AEGIS targeting system. Los Alamos National Laboratory, the Research Institute in Astrophysics and Planetology (IRAP) in France, the French Space Agency (CNES), the University of Hawaii, and the University of Valladolid in Spain cooperated in the SuperCam’s development and manufacture.
1) Mars Oxygen ISRU Experiment (MOXIE): an exploration technology investigation to produce a small amount of oxygen (O2) from Martian atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2). On April 20, 2021, 5.37 grams of oxygen were made in an hour, with nine more extractions planned over the course of two Earth years to further investigate the instrument. This technology could be scaled up for human life support or to make rocket fuel for return missions.
2) Planetary Instrument for X-Ray Lithochemistry (PIXL): an X-Ray fluorescence spectrometer to determine the fine-scale elemental composition of Martian surface materials.
3) Radar Imager for Mars’ subsurface experiment (RIMFAX): a ground-penetrating radar to image different ground densities, structural layers, buried rocks, and meteorites and detect underground water ice and salty brine at 10 m (33 ft) depth. The RIMFAX is being provided by the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (FFI).
4) Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer (MEDA): a set of sensors that measure temperature, wind speed and direction, pressure, relative humidity, radiation, and dust particle size and shape. It is provided by Spain’s Centro de Astrobiologia.
5) Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman and Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals (SHERLOC): an ultraviolet Raman spectrometer that uses fine-scale imaging and an ultraviolet (UV) laser to determine fine-scale mineralogy and detect organic compounds.
6) Mastcam-Z: a stereoscopic imaging system with the ability to zoom. Many photos were included in the published NASA photo gallery.
7) SuperCam: an instrument suite that can provide imaging, chemical composition analysis, and mineralogy in rocks and regolith from a distance. It is an upgraded version of the ChemCam on the Curiosity rover but with two lasers and four spectrometers that will allow it to remotely identify biosignatures and assess past habitability. SuperCam is used in conjunction with the AEGIS targeting system. Los Alamos National Laboratory, the Research Institute in Astrophysics and Planetology (IRAP) in France, the French Space Agency (CNES), the University of Hawaii, and the University of Valladolid in Spain cooperated in the SuperCam’s development and manufacture.
