The Perseverance Rover’s Scientific Instruments by Evan Xie (IV) On February 18th, 2021, NASA’s Perseverance Rover successfully landed on Mars in the Jezero Crater. Following the Sojourner, Spirit, Opportunity, and Curiosity rovers, NASA’s previous Mars missions, Perseverance is tasked with four key missions: determine if life previously existed on Mars, identify the characteristics of past Martian climates, characterize the geology on Mars, and prepare for future human-led missions. With such difficult and important objectives to complete on a foreign planet, it should come as no surprise that this rover features some of humanity’s most advanced and revolutionary technology. Spending a great amount of time and $2.2 billion designing, prototyping, and building the rover, the scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) were able to pack an astounding seven scientific instruments, alongside a rock sampling system, a tiny helicopter, and more, within Perseverance’s 2260 pound, 10ft x 9ft x 7ft frame (Figure 1). Each scientific instrument combines different technologies to perform their respective experiments on Mars, which will hopefully broaden our understanding of the Red Planet. First, Mastcam-Z is Perseverance’s intricate camera system that will capture pictures of the Mar-
Figure 1: Image of the Perseverance Rover from the front
Rocket by Ava Khan (III) tian surface and atmosphere while also helping scientists select rocks to core and study. Mastcam-Z is an upgrade from Curiosity’s camera system in almost every aspect: each individual camera can shoot 20-megapixel colored images, rather than 1-megapixel black and white images, contains powerful zoom capabilities to study smaller objects, and has a wider field of view providing Mastcam-Z with a full 360-degree perspective. With these features, Perseverance can photograph and record different terrain features, rocks, soil, and Martian phenomena (dust storms, cloud motions, etc), providing scientists with invaluable visuals to further their understanding of Mars. Next, the Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer (MEDA) is a group of sensors responsible for measuring different aspects of the Martian environment —namely wind speed, temperature, humidity, dust particle size, and radiation levels. This data will be crucial for future manned missions, as weather predictions will protect astronauts in the dangerous Martian environment and weather. For example, intense dust storms can reduce the amount of sunlight reaching solar panels, decreasing energy production and causing equipment shut-downs, just as the Spirit and Opportunity rovers did. Being warned beforehand would allow astronauts to conserve some
48
