Perseverance Rover: Exploring Mars

It was launched on 30 July 2020 and landed on Mars’ Jezero Crater on 18 February 2021. Jezero is a Crater located in the Isidis Planitia region of Mars. It is called a Crater as it got created when an ancient meteorite hit Mars with a great force and left a hollowed-out area. This Crater has a diameter of 49.0 km and approximately 398 m deep.

Some examples of Craters on Mars include: Gale, Holden, Endeavour, Victoria, Endurance and Terby. All of these are however unique in some or another way. Perseverance Rover also called ‘Percy’ has a length of 2.9 m, a height of 2.2 m, and a diameter of 2.7 m. It is car-sized, 6-wheeled, and weighs 1 ton. This mission is banked on to cost $2.7 billion. The Perseverance rover has been built and the operations are being managed by Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) which is located in California of United States and is a NASA field center.

Objectives Of Perseverance

1.   The history of the region where Percy has landed can be disclosed. For that, it will have to study the various types of minerals and rocks present as well as the historical climatic conditions including the environment of the region.

2.   To identify an area that was once capable of supporting ancient life or even microbial life.

3.   To collect the core rock and soil samples in order to store them on the surface of Mars.

4.   Test for the availability of oxygen there so as to create a way for humans as well as future missions.

5.   To recognize the origin and evolution of Mars.

Why Was Jezero Crater Selected For Landing?

According to Scientists, this area was once flooded with water and had an ancient river named ‘Delta’. It was visible from the orbit that the carbonates and clay minerals were present there though Mars is cold and dry today. These are formed only when water is present. More than 60 such locations were examined by the scientists as well as the team members that required a 5-year long study. Some of the rocks in Jezero Crater are about 3.6 billion years old. The presence of water in this region serves as evidence for microbial life in history. Thus, Jezero Crater was selected.

Specifications And Jobs Of Perseverance Rover

All tests cannot be done precisely in the space itself. Thus, Perseverance will collect the samples of soil and rocks and then store them in the tubes so that NASA and the European Space Agency will collect those samples once Perseverance returns back to Earth. This will even help in conducting various operations and experiments in the future.

To record the first-ever sounds from Mars, it has 2 microphones.

It has a radar system RIMFAX which is located at the lower layer of the rover which can recognize the presence of water up to 10 m under the surface.

Rover has 6 wheels made up of aluminum and a diameter of about 52.5 centimeters. Each wheel has its individual motor. These wheels make the vehicle capable of turning 360 degrees in place. The legs are made up of titanium that allow the rover to climb over the rocks which can be even 40 centimeters in height.

On comparing with the vehicles on earth, the speed of the rover is slow. Its highest speed on flat, hard ground is 152 meters per hour. It consumes energy of fewer than 200 watts. However, speed must not be considered here. Instead, it is a case of efficiency and careful experiments.

Its operating speed is 200 Mhz. The dynamic Random Access Memory is of 256 MB and the flash memory is of 2 GB. The Electrically Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory(EEPROM) is of 256 KB.

The PIXL camera located at its robotic arm can see the properties that can be as small as a grain of salt. Thus, it can look for the existence of microscopic life.

Perseverance is about to lower a four-pound helicopter named ‘Ingenuity’ on the Martian surface and will move 100 m away. Ingenuity is a rotocraft of $85 million and lies in the belly region of Perseverance. Flights of this helicopter will be filmed. According to NASA, the earliest flight will occur in the first week of April. But this will happen after the engineers on earth check the system extensively. Perseverance is capable of working even through dust storms which generally block the sunlight.

Sounds Captured

Perseverance rover has captured two versions of the sounds of driving on the Martian surface for the first time. These were released to the public on 17 March 2021. The first version can be heard here and the second one can be heard here. The first version contains the unfiltered and raw sounds recorded in Jezero Crater. This sound has been created by the interaction of the rover’s wheels with the Martian surface. The second version lasts 90 seconds long which has been combined by the NASA engineers from the raw audio file by filtering out some noise. Many people don’t appreciate these images and sounds but the fact is that the place where this is captured along with the climatic conditions and risk, it feels worthy. However, a corresponding team of engineers is finding the reason behind such sounds. It is said that they must be a result of the electromagnetic interference from the electronic boxes of Perseverance itself or a result of the interaction between the rover’s suspension and the Martian surface. They however create a scratching noise of high pitch.

About The First Dust Devil

It was revealed on 17 March 2021 that rover found its first durst devil. It appeared like a tornado on the Earth but both are still different. On Earth, tornados occur when warm and humid air collides with cold and dry air. The warm air goes above the cold air and causes an upward current of air. This rising starts rotating when the winds vary. However, there are no such facilities on Mars. Under certain conditions, the atmosphere of carbon dioxide can become warm and rise above the colder air resulting into a whirlwind.

Conclusion

This Perseverance mission is a part of Moon to Mars exploration by NASA. Humans have always tried to efficiently utilize the available resources to make life easy as well as to explore something new to find new opportunities. So Mars cannot be an exception here. This mission will not only provide the current conditions on Mars but will also help to perform many such revolutionary operations in the future.