In August 2012, NASA already successfully landed a rover on Mars called Curiosity. Curiosity’s success motivated NASA to launch another rover on Mars, despite the budget cuts and the uncertainty surrounding their initiative. And hence, the idea of Perseverance was born. Perseverance Rover, which is currently investigating the Jezero Crater, has four main objectives on Mars. First is to determine whether life ever existed on Mars; second is to characterize the climate on Mars; third is to characterise the geology of the red planet, and fourth is to prepare the planet for upcoming human exploration projects in the near future.
Perseverance will soon be celebrating its one-year anniversary on Mars. Therefore, let’s take a glimpse on its journey so far, which amounts to Sol 285, or roughly 291 days on the red and rough surface.
July 30, 2020
The Perseverance rover, manufactured by Jet Propulsion Laboratory, NASA, was launched in space on an Atlas V-541 rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, USA. The rocket is one of the largest available. The same type of rocket was used to send Perseverance predecessor, Curiosity, on the red planet. Accompanying the rover was a small robotic helicopter called Ingenuity.
February 18, 2021
The rover and the copter, specially designed to survive on the surface of Mars, covered the journey through the abyss and successfully landed on the surface of Mars on February 18, 2021. The rover, which is about the size of a small car, weighed 150 kilograms more than the rover Curiosity.
The same day that marked the landing of the Perseverance rover on Mars also marked the first time that the rover was sent back to earth soon after touchdown.
Current Location
NASA’s Perseverance mission is the first-ever interplanetary mission with as many as 19 cameras on the unit to help people on earth take a ride with Perseverance. The space exploration organization also has a real-time tracker that allows anybody to track the rover on Mars.
Unlike the Curiosity Rover that drills into the space rocks, Perseverance carefully carves out core samples of Mars’ rocks and keep a sample, similar to the size of chalk, in the sample tube. NASA is working in collaboration with European Space Agency (ESA) to bring back the samples to earth for an in-depth analysis.
Recently, the ground control lost connection with Perseverance due to solar conjunction, where the Sun was between the two planets, and no direct line of communication could be established. However, two weeks after the cut-off, the Perseverance came live again.
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