In just 57 days, NASA’s Perseverance rover will attempt to land on Mars. Mission controllers say it will be “seven minutes of terror,” as this new description dramatically demonstrates.
Produced by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the digital animation describes key events during the Perseverance rover’s entry, descent and landing (EDL). The video lasts just over three minutes in length, which is not much shorter than the landing phase itself, which should last about seven minutes. Perseverance was launched on July 30, and will conduct EDL in February. 18, 2021 at 15:30 EST.
The $ 2.7 billion rover will land at Jezero Crater, the site of a former lake and delta river. Equipped with its many tools, Perseverance will look for signs of microbial life, study Martian weather and geology, and collect evidence for a future recovery mission. The rover will also implement ingenuity, a tiny helicopter that is ready to become the first man-made plane to take flight in an alien world.
Of course, perseverance will have to stick to the landing for any of this to happen. Indeed, Mars is famous for completing missions before they have a chance to begin – ESA has failed The Schiaparelli mission in 2017 being a recent example.
The first stage of the EDL will see the execution of the cruise stage, which hosts solar panels, radios and fuel tanks used during the journey to the Red Planet. The descent stage, ca. Perseverance approaching the atmosphere, will trigger small thrusters on the rear housing to properly orient the vehicle and to ensure the heat shield facing forward. The descent stage will then see the rover careen through the thin Martian atmosphere at speeds reaching 19,312 km / h km / h) according NASA. If this stage is carried out as planned, the interior of the boat should only be warmed to room temperature.
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A supersonic parachute will trigger once the descent stage slows to at least 1,000 mph (1609 km / h). NASA will launch a new system, Range Trigger, to determine the best time for the parachute to unfold, which should take place approximately 240 seconds after atmospheric entry. The heat shield will then fall as it happens no more Necessary exposing the rover to the Martian atmosphere for the first time.
Another new piece of technology, called Relative navigation on the ground, will use video cameras and maps to choose the safest place for a landing.
At most, the parachute will slow the vehicle to about 200 mph (322 km / h), which requires electric descent. When Perseverance is 2,100 meters above the surface, the rocket descent stage will begin, slowing the boat to a speed of 2 mph. (3.2 km / h). A sky crane will then slightly lower the 2260-lira (1,025-kilogram) rover on the surface, which will do using a set of 21 meters long (6.4-length of one meter) cable. The sky crane will cut the cables once it senses a landing, then zip it away from the target site.
No more then will real the fun begins as the rover will be free to explore the Martian surface. The Perseverance mission is expected to last two years, but, as the previous one showed, cIt should take much longer. NASA’s Curiosity Rover, for example, landed on Mars in 2012 and continues to be strong. We look forward to the mission of perseverance, but first we must survive the dreaded seven minutes of terror.