Perseverance rover landing on Mars

Perseverance Lands on Mars

ARNAV VISHWAKARMA

news editor

On Friday, February 19th, Mars gained a new habitant — a one ton, SUV sized rover that would embark on a journey to find life on the now desolate planet and further humanity’s exploration into reaches beyond our understanding. Perseverance was launched from Earth about seven months prior and touched down safely with a similar system to the one that Curiosity used years earlier, all while filming the descent for the whole world to watch.

The rover has an array of instruments that it utilizes for navigation and taking photographs. A Lot of these systems are similar to those of Curiosity, but it also has a few specialized instruments specific to its mission. One instrument that Perseverance carries is MOXIE, a machine that aims to input the CO2 that is abundant on Mars, and convert it into oxygen that can be used for getting rockets off the surface of Mars or for breathing. Perseverance is also making history by carrying a drone that will be launched on the Martian surface for the first time ever. The drone, Ingenuity, is stowed away under Perseverance and is designed to scout terrain ahead in order for route mapping. While its battery life is only about 90 seconds, as it has to spin its blades at about 2800rpm to fight the thin Martian atmosphere, its success would demonstrate that flight is viable on Mars. Although Ingenuity can assist the rover in scouting terrain ahead, this is not something that the rover needs to utilize very often because it only moves at speed of about 0.1mph.

Perseverance has many goals and purposes, but the primary one is to search for signs of microbial life that may have existed on Mars. Using its various spectrometers, it is able to analyze rock samples and determine if life had existed on Mars before, given that the previous rovers had determined that Mars may have been suitable for life once.

Part of determining if there was life on Mars also includes mapping the weather and season cycles, which is done by meticulously gathevring data on water vapor and dust levels within the atmosphere, as well as overall weather patterns using its compact environmental monitoring station. Radiation Detectors provide data on the radiation present on Mars, which is an important metric for one of the other goals of Perseverance — preparing for eventual Human exploration on the planet.

Perseverance was not only an impressive scientific feat, but it is also a major step towards advancing humanity’s presence outside our current world. Its mission will help us understand how life was formed, advance current technology, and advance as a species for many years to come

“We built the rover not just to land but to find and collect the best scientific samples for return to Earth [...] they set the stage for future robotic and crewed mis-

sions.” - Mike Watkins, JPL Director