Mars 2020 Mission : The Perseverance Rover - By Sanuka
The Mars 2020 NASA Mission : Perseverance Rover
What is NASA ?The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is an independent agency of the U.S. federal government responsible for the civilian space program, as well as aeronautics and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics.
NASA has done many Missions. They are here to protect our planet, to protect humanity. There is a great saying "If humans need to be a Multi Planetary species, we will have to make our path to live on other planets." So, NASA has already taken a step forward . We sent the first man to step on the moon on a rocket, next we sent satellites to send us pictures of deep deep space. Some crashed but we did not give up. Now. we have made our next destination to live on. It's Called "MARS"!
NASA has already sent tons of Rovers and Satellites to Mars as Missions to Mars. This years Mission, the Mars 2020 Mission. Is the Perseverance Rover. It is already about to land. Let's learn a bit more from NASA themselves.
The Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover will search for signs of ancient microbial life, which will advance NASA's quest to explore the past habitability of Mars. The rover has a drill to collect core samples of Martian rock and soil, then store them in sealed tubes for pickup by a future mission that would ferry them back to Earth for detailed analysis. Perseverance will also test technologies to help pave the way for future human exploration of Mars.
Strapped to the rover's belly for the journey to Mars is a technology demonstration — the Mars Helicopter, Ingenuity, may achieve a "Wright Brothers moment “ by testing the first powered flight on the Red Planet.
Searching for Ancient Life, Gathering Rocks and Soil
There are several ways that the mission helps pave the way for future human expeditions to Mars and demonstrates technologies that may be used in those endeavors. These include testing a method for producing oxygen from the Martian atmosphere, identifying other resources (such as subsurface water), improving landing techniques, and characterizing weather, dust, and other potential environmental conditions that could affect future astronauts living and working on Mars.
Key Facts About
NASA's Mars 2020 Rover
Launched:
July 30 at 4:50 a.m. PDT (7:50 a.m. EDT)
Landing:
Feb. 18, 2021
Mission Duration:
At least one Mars year (about 687 Earth days)
Current Phase:
Cruise ›
Launched:
July 30 at 4:50 a.m. PDT (7:50 a.m. EDT)
Landing:
Feb. 18, 2021
Mission Duration:
At least one Mars year (about 687 Earth days)
Current Phase:
Cruise ›
Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover Science:
Studying Mars' Habitability, Seeking Signs of Past Microbial Life, Collecting and Caching Samples, and Preparing for Future Human Missions
The Perseverance rover has four science objectives that support the
Mars Exploration Program's science goals:
Looking for Habitability: Identify past environments capable of supporting microbial life. Seeking Biosignatures: Seek signs of possible past microbial life in those habitable environments, particularly in special rocks known to preserve signs of life over time. Caching Samples: Collect core rock and "soil" samples and store them on the Martian surface. Preparing for Humans: Test oxygen production from the Martian atmosphere.
All address key astrobiology questions related to the potential of Mars as a place for life. The first three consider the possibility of past microbial life. Even if Perseverance does not discover any signs of past life, it paves the way for human life on Mars someday.
The Perseverance rover has four science objectives that support the
Mars Exploration Program's science goals:
| Looking for Habitability: | Identify past environments capable of supporting microbial life. |
| Seeking Biosignatures: | Seek signs of possible past microbial life in those habitable environments, particularly in special rocks known to preserve signs of life over time. |
| Caching Samples: | Collect core rock and "soil" samples and store them on the Martian surface. |
| Preparing for Humans: | Test oxygen production from the Martian atmosphere. |
All address key astrobiology questions related to the potential of Mars as a place for life. The first three consider the possibility of past microbial life. Even if Perseverance does not discover any signs of past life, it paves the way for human life on Mars someday.
Mars 2020 Technology: Heritage and Innovation
Technologies for Entry, Descent, and Landing
The mission uses technological innovations already demonstrated successfully, especially for entry, descent, and landing (EDL). Like NASA's Curiosity rover (, the Mars 2020 spacecraft uses a guided entry, descent, and landing system. The landing system on Mars 2020 mission includes a parachute, descent vehicle, and an approach called a "skycrane maneuver" for lowering the rover on a tether to the surface during the final seconds before landing.
This type of landing system provides the ability to land a very large, heavy rover on the surface of Mars in a more precise landing area than was possible before Curiosity's landing. Mars 2020 takes things one step further. It adds new entry, descent, and landing (EDL) technologies, such as Terrain-Relative Navigation (TRN). This sophisticated navigation system allows the rover to detect and avoid hazardous terrain by diverting around it during its descent through the Martian atmosphere. A microphone allows engineers to analyze entry, descent, and landing. It might also capture sounds of the rover at work, which would provide engineers with clues about the rover's health and operations, and would be a treat to hear.
Technologies for Surface Operations
The Perseverance rover design minimizes costs and risks because it is largely based on the engineering design for the previous Curiosity rover. The Perseverance long-range mobility system allows it to travel on the surface of Mars over 3 to 12 miles (5 to 20 kilometers). Improvements on Perseverance include a new, more capable wheel design. And for the first time, the rover carries a drill for coring samples from Martian rocks and soil. It gathers and stores the cores in tubes on the Martian surface, using "depot caching." Caching demonstrates a new rover capability of gathering, storing, and preserving samples. This could potentially pave the way for future missions to retrieve the samples and ferry them to Earth for intensive laboratory analysis.
Perseverance tests a technology for extracting oxygen from the Martian atmosphere, which is 96% carbon dioxide. This demonstration helps mission planners test ways of using Mars' natural resources to support human explorers and improve designs for life support, transportation, and other important systems for living and working on Mars. The rover also monitors weather and dust in the Martian atmosphere. Such studies are important for understanding daily and seasonal changes on Mars, and will help future human explorers better predict Martian weather.
I hope you learned what the Perseverance Rover will do once it gets to Mars. And how it will help us to explore Mars even better and more efficiently in the future. But, have you ever wondered who is behind all of this amazing Missions. It is NASA and JPL but who are those amazing people.
Moogega Cooper
Moogega (pronounced Moo-ji-gae) Cooper is the Lead Planetary Protection Engineer for Mars 2020. She was responsible for ensuring spacecraft compliance with cleanliness requirements. This required interfacing with several entities within JPL, vendors, and NASA Headquarters. Moogega is a recipient of several awards, including the NASA Early Career Public Achievement Medal, the Charles Elachi Award for Exceptional Early Career Achievement, and JPL Voyager Awards for Technical Leadership. In addition to her work at JPL, she also enjoys public outreach, collaborating with schools, lecture series, and media organizations to spread the love of STEAM.
Gregorio Villar
High School
Saint Louis University - Laboratory High School
Baguio, Philippines
College/University
Bachelors, Physics
California State Polytechnic University, Pomona
Masters, Astronautical Engineering
University of Southern California
Swati Mohan
Swati Mohan emigrated from India to the United States when she was 1 year old, and was raised in Northern Virginia / Washington DC metro area. She completed her B.S from Cornell University in Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, and her M.S. and Ph.D from MIT in Aeronautics/Astronautics. She has worked on multiple missions such as Cassini (mission to Saturn) and GRAIL (a pair of formation flown spacecraft to the Moon). She has worked on Mars 2020 since almost the beginning of the project in 2013. She is currently the Mars 2020 Guidance, Navigation, and Controls Operations Lead, at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA
Elio Morillo
Elio Morillo is a Mars 2020 systems testbed engineer. For the last four years he has contributed to the mission by developing and executing electrical integration procedures, verification and validation, and most recently, nominal and off-nominal operations readiness testing of Mars surface operations. Prior to coming to JPL, Elio interned at GE Aviation in Lynn, Massachusetts, where he worked on F414 afterburners, at SpaceX in Hawthorne, California, where he built the first iteration of the thermal and ECLSS system for Crew Dragon, and at Boeing in St. Louis, Missouri, where he worked in classified projects as well as JDAMS and SDBs. Elio is passionate about DEI and is a SHPE Lifetime member, bringing years of volunteering and organization experience to JPL's Hispanic Employee Resource Group and more recently to JPL's New Researchers and Scientists Group, where he is the current networking chair.
Lisa Guan
I received my B.S. in Molecular Environmental Biology from UC Berkeley in 2014 and my M.S. in Biology from the University of Munich, Germany in 2016. My graduate work focused on exploring microbial communities of extreme environments using genomics and Next-Generation sequencing technology. Since joining JPL, I have been involved in Planetary Protection implementation efforts for the Mars 2020 and InSight Missions.
Rob Manning
I have spent most of my career exploring Mars. After being Mars Pathfinder’s Chief Engineer, my friends and I co-conspired the idea to morph the successful Pathfinder and Sojourner rover design into becoming the twin Mars Exploration Rovers (MER), Spirit and Opportunity. On MER I led the rover system engineering team as well as the entry, descent, and landing team. My teammates and I also conceived the idea of a skycrane helicopter-like landing that we later used to land the much bigger Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) Rover. After MER I was the Mars Program Chief Engineer working Mars Phoenix Lander, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, and beyond. Soon I became the Chief Engineer for the MSL Project that landed Curiosity Rover on Mars. I have also worked on many other amazing NASA and JPL projects since.
I have had a wonderful and remarkably lucky career spanning four decades working with some of world's most amazing people. My career has been my childhood dream come true.
Mallory Lefland
Mallory graduated from Georgia Institute of Technology with a BS in aerospace engineering. She started working at NASA JPL soon after, becoming a member of the Curiosity rover engineering operations Teams. Since 2014, she has worked on the Mars 2020 mission. She focused on cross-cutting areas like thermal, sequencing, and data management before joining the EDL team. For the last 5 years, including the most recent one as a First Mode employee, she has focused on the EDL timeline behavior; designing and testing all the possible scenarios in the last 6 minutes before the rover touches down on Mars.
Cj Giovingo
Cj Giovingo is a Systems Engineer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California. They are currently working on the Entry, Descent and Landing (EDL) Systems team of the Mars 2020 mission, NASA’s next robotic rover to travel to the Red Planet. In addition to their work at JPL, Cj is halfway through a Masters of Science in Astronautical Engineering at the University of Southern California.
Prior to their current work in space technology, Cj had a career in environmental and union organizing, skills that transferred surprisingly well to being a systems engineer. Outside of work, Cj and their wife live as Faculty in Residence on the University of Southern California campus where they serve as mentors, advisers, and advocates for the first year students in their residential community. In July 2019, Cj joined the National Board of Directors for Out for Undergrad, a non-profit aimed at helping high-achieving LGBTQ+ undergraduates reach their full potential.
Chloe Sackier
I graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a BS in aerospace engineering. I first joined the Entry, Descent, and Landing team as a college intern, supporting the wind tunnel tests of the supersonic planetary parachute used in EDL. Right after graduating, I came back to JPL and the EDL team full time. Since then, I have helped run high fidelity EDL simulations in our testbed, supported system-level EDL tests, and worked with the DSN and Mars orbiter teams as the EDL Communications Systems Engineer.
Allen Chen
Allen Chen is a systems engineer in the Entry, Descent, and Landing Systems and Advanced Technologies group at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He is currently the Entry, Descent, and Landing (EDL) Lead for the Mars 2020 project. During his ten year tour of duty on the Mars Science Laboratory mission, he was the EDL operation lead, the EDL flight dynamics lead, co-led the joint science/engineering Mars atmosphere characterization team, was a member of the Flight System Systems Engineering team, and did play-by-play commentary for landing. He also worked on the Mars Exploration Rovers project, performing EDL reconstruction analysis and testing.
Erisa Hines Stilley
Erisa (Hines) Stilley is currently working on the Mars2020 mission at JPL on the Entry, Descent, and Landing team (EDL). The team has been preparing for the arrival of the Perseverance rover at Mars on February 18, 2021. She has supported the development, testing, and operations preparations for this EDL event for the last eight years.
When Erisa joined the Mars 2020 EDL team, she also spent half of her time as a rover planner for the Curiosity rover currently operating on Mars. Prior to these roles, she served as the Cruise Attitude Control Systems Engineer and supported Cruise operations for Mars Science Lab (Curiosity); worked on Altair, the next generation moon lander design being developed during the Constellation program as a systems engineer; was a testbed and launch operations support engineer in her first flight project role on the DAWN Asteroid mission.
Maththew Smith
Matthew W. Smith is a spacecraft systems engineer and researcher at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. His recent work focuses on the design, implementation, testing, and operation of complex space vehicle systems as a member of the Mars 2020 Perseverance mission. Previously, he was Project System Engineer and Mission Manager for the ASTERIA mission, a small space telescope seeking transiting exoplanets around nearby stars. His research interests are in systems engineering for space-based telescopes and instruments, end-to-end modeling and simulation, cubesat and smallsat implementation practices, and multi-disciplinary design optimization. He holds a BA in Applied Mathematics from Harvard University, an MPhil in Engineering from the University of Cambridge (UK), and MS and PhD degrees in Aeronautics and Astronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
There you have it my friends. Those are some of the people working for Mars Missions. And as I mentioned these are only some of the people. It takes a lot of people and hard work to achieve such tremendous goals.But did you know that even people who don't work at NASA even has helped for the Countdown to Mars. Take a look !
Now I know, that by the time I have posted this the Perseverance Rover has landed on Mars and has taken its first pictures but I am still gonna give you guys the Trailer...
So, that's it for today folks and I will see you very soon with some more amazing facts and information. Till then, see you all soon.
Sanuka
Written By Sanuka Thennakoon
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