The Breathtaking Voyage of NASA’s Perseverance Rover and Its Mission to Search for Life on the Red Planet
Throughout its inspiring journey, NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover had to overcome many obstacles to land on the Martian surface in pursuit of answering one of humanity’s greatest questions. Was there ever life on Mars?
On July 30, 2020, a towering two-stage Atlas V-541 rocket lifted off from Space Launch Complex 41 with a crackling boom, roaring off its launch pad at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. With its first stage common core booster along with 4 additional solid rocket boosters, the Atlas V rocket launched with just the right amount of thrust needed to escape the Earth’s gravity, along with its payload and fuel, and propel itself out of the Earth’s lower atmosphere and into orbit.
Aboard the rocket was a very special piece of cargo, NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover, whose purpose would prepare scientists and engineers to take another major step in Mars exploration: To search for life and prepare for future human missions to Mars.
But sending a rover to Mars is not an easy task. To successfully make the journey, a lot has to go right. There is very little room for failure. One small error could prove to be fatal for the entire mission, and years of diligent hard work and time would be lost in an instant. For this reason, many years of thoughtful planning and preparation were made to ensure the Mars 2020 mission went as smoothly as possible. Starting with the launch.
Getting the Rover into Space
The first major challenge for any mission to Mars is timing the launch perfectly so that the spacecraft can successfully make its journey to the Red Planet. Mars is very far away from Earth. Millions of miles separate the two planets. They orbit the Sun at different speeds and distances. And their orbital periods leave experts with a very narrow travel window that takes place once roughly every 2 years (about 26 months). During this window, both planets are aligned in just the right way to allow for an energy-efficient journey to Mars from Earth. Missing that window would delay the mission significantly.
With this critical information in mind, the Mars 2020 mission launched right on schedule to make this very narrow travel window. Loaded with thermally stable kerosene fuel (type RP-1) and liquid oxygen, the rocket was ready for take off. And on launch day, the Atlas V rocket fired up its throttleable RD-180 engine, along with its 4 solid rocket boosters fastened alongside the central common core booster, and set the Perseverence rover on a grand trajectory to the Red Planet.
After successfully driving the Atlas V rocket out of the Earth’s thick lower atmosphere and exhausting all of its fuel, the Atlas V booster detached itself entirely from the rest of the rocket, falling away and leaving behind the Centaur Upper Stage (the second stage of the rocket) to carry the spacecraft out of Earth’s orbit. Harnessing the high-energy power of liquid hydrogen, the Centaur’s single restartable RL-10 engine fired twice: once to enter low Earth orbit. Then, a second time to accelerate the spacecraft out of Earth’s orbit.
Without the Atlas V rocket's overwhelming mass, the Centaur Upper Stage had much less to transport. And without the dense lower atmosphere to push through, the Centaur’s single RL-10 engine was able to provide all of the thrust needed to send the spacecraft on its way to Mars.
Before leaving low earth orbit, the rocket released its payload fairing (the nose cone that protects the spacecraft during launch). And once the rocket successfully escaped Earth’s orbit and reached its desired velocity, the rocket's Centaur Upper Stage detached itself from the spacecraft, sending the Perseverence rover on a long cruise to the Red Planet.
The Cruise Phase
Out of Earth’s orbit and traveling through space at 24,600 mph (about 39,600 kph), the spacecraft successfully entered the cruise phase, departing from Earth with just the right velocity needed to make its seven-month journey to Mars. From this point forward, the nearly 300 million mile voyage to the Red Planet would be made alone, with engineers back on Earth paying close attention to ensure the spacecraft stayed on its designated flight path.
The spacecraft itself was guided through space by the cruise stage, located at the back of the spacecraft. The cruise stage supported the entire vehicle throughout its seven-month trip to Mars: featuring a large solar panel to provide a constant supply of power to the rover during its journey, radio antennas to keep the spacecraft in communication with Earth, and 8 small thrusters to adjust the vehicle’s flight path as needed during its cruise.
The rest of the spacecraft is made up of the aeroshell (the backshell and the heatshield), designed to carry and protect Perseverance during its cruise and eventual descent to Mars. The aeroshell encapsulates both the rover and the descent stage, whose job is to land the rover during its final descent to Mars. Together, the spacecraft includes all 5 components, each of which is vital to the success of the mission.
But getting to Mars is only half the battle. Mars is a pretty big place, and for scientists to search for possible signs of ancient life, the rover has to land in just the right spot on the surface of Mars, where life most likely left behind signs of its past existence. So for the mission to be considered a success, the spacecraft needed to land precisely where scientists intended, at a carefully selected location: the Jezero Crater. Landing anywhere else would result in a failed mission.
To ensure that the spacecraft stayed on its course to land at Jezero Crater, engineers back on Earth planned several opportunities to check in on the spacecraft throughout its journey and adjust its flight path as needed. These flight path manipulations are known as trajectory correction maneuvers (TCMs), designed to fine-tune the spacecraft's flight path leading up to its entry into the Martian atmosphere.
During these maneuvers, engineers can check in on the spacecraft and calculate its current position. If the flight path needs to be corrected, they can command the cruise stage’s eight thrusters to fire for a brief period of time to gently nudge it back on course, ensuring that the spacecraft enters the Martian atmosphere at just the right location to land inside the Jezero crater.
Five of these TCMs, as well as a backup maneuver and a contingency maneuver, were planned for the cruise phase. The first two maneuvers were successfully executed 15 days and 62 days after launch, respectively, to point the spacecraft toward Mars and adjust its flight path accordingly. The third maneuver was completed 141 days after launch, adjusting the speed and direction of the spacecraft. And the final three correction maneuvers were scheduled near the end of its cruise, during the approach phase, to refine the flight path before the spacecraft entered the Martian atmosphere (illustration below).
With lots of meticulous planning and the success of each correction maneuver, the spacecraft stayed on its intended trajectory, arriving at the edge of the Martian atmosphere at the exact location needed to begin its descent to the Jezero crater landing site. After seven months of traveling through the cold vacuum of space, the encapsulated Perseverance rover arrived on Mars’ doorstep, well prepared to make the angst-ridden descent to the surface. The ultimate challenge ahead: bringing the spacecraft to a breaking halt and landing the rover safely on the surface of Mars.
Landing on Mars is Hard
Traveling at nearly 12,500 miles per hour (20,000 kilometers per hour), the Mars 2020 spacecraft quickly approached the edge of the Martian atmosphere at a remarkably high velocity, marking the beginning of the Entry, Descent, and Landing (EDL) phase of its journey. During the EDL phase, the vehicle only had a short 7-minute window of time to reduce its speed entirely and come to a complete stop, all while hitting an extremely narrow mark on the Martian surface.
To add to these challenges, the spacecraft also had to land entirely on its own without any assistance from NASA back on Earth. On the day of the rover’s landing, Mars was a little more than 11 light-minutes away from Earth, meaning it would take more than 11 minutes for a radio signal from Mars to reach Earth, and vice versa. So by the time anyone on Earth received a signal that the rover had entered the Martian atmosphere, in reality, the rover would have already landed 4 minutes ago. This means that the entire EDL phase of the mission had to be completed autonomously.
For this reason, entry, descent, and landing marks the most intense and nerve-racking phase of the entire Mars 2020 mission. Commonly referred to as the “Seven Minutes of Terror,” because the spacecraft has 7 minutes to get from the top of the atmosphere all the way down to the surface without making any mistakes, posing one of the greatest engineering challenges in planetary exploration.
The Mars 2020 mission bravely took on these challenges with a range of new and innovative technologies. Most of its onboard technology was inherited from previous missions to Mars, primarily from the Mars Science Laboratory mission that landed Curiosity in 2012. But the Mars 2020 mission also added its own suite of improved EDL technologies to help pave the way for future missions to Mars. Altogether, the incoming spacecraft was more than well-equipped with the technology needed to complete its journey to the Martian surface.
Entering the Martian Atmosphere
After a long 7-month voyage through space, the spacecraft's cruise stage had served its purpose. Roughly 10 minutes before entering the Martian atmosphere, the cruise stage separated from the protective aeroshell that envelopes the rover. And from this point forward, the aeroshell had to make the rest of its journey alone, without the cruise stage's support.
But before entering the Martian atmosphere, the aeroshell needed to adjust its attitude (its orientation relative to Mars) to make sure its heat shield was facing forward for the plunge ahead. To do this, a set of small thrusters onboard the backshell of the spacecraft fired accordingly to reorient the vehicle as it approached the Martian atmosphere, keeping the heat shield facing forward to prepare it for its turbulent descent to the surface.
Successfully oriented for entry, and with less than 400 miles from the landing site, the spacecraft penetrated the Martian atmosphere at an exceptionally high velocity. The atmosphere on Mars is considerably thin relative to Earth. But at extremely high speeds, the friction from its atmosphere applied a significant amount of drag force against the spacecraft’s heat shield, slowing the vehicle down dramatically while heating it up to extremely high temperatures as it plunged toward the surface.
The heat shield is designed to take advantage of the Martian atmosphere, utilizing air resistance instead of rocket fuel, to slow the vehicle down during its descent. Moving through the atmosphere, the spacecraft was exposed to extremely high temperatures. But by design, the heat shield carried most of that heat away from the Perseverance rover, protecting it from the extreme temperatures present outside of the spacecraft. Safe within the aeroshell, the rover barely reached room temperature.
About 80 seconds into its deep plunge through the Martian atmosphere, temperatures on the outside of the heatshield reached peak heating, bringing the spacecraft up to 2,370 degrees Fahrenheit (about 1,300 deg. Celsius). This is the hottest temperature it will reach throughout its descent. And then, roughly 10 seconds later, the spacecraft reached peak deceleration, reducing its speed rapidly as it approached the surface.
Moving through the Martian atmosphere can be extremely unpredictable. As the spacecraft falls towards the Martian terrain below, it has to push through the surrounding air without being driven off course. Unfortunately, the atmosphere is not uniformly distributed in a way that makes it easy for a spacecraft to stay on its designated flight path. Air pockets of varying density create turbulent and unpredictable conditions for the vehicle to navigate through.
To overcome this challenge and avoid being thrown off course, the spacecraft once again employed its backshell thrusters to keep itself properly oriented for a successful landing. During its heated descent, it fired each of these thrusters to adjust the angle and direction of lift of the spacecraft, carefully guiding it to the surface. This part of the rover’s descent through the Martian atmosphere is known as the “guided entry” portion of its EDL phase, using its automated guided entry algorithm to keep it on its designated path to the Jezero Crater.
Four minutes into its descent, the spacecraft’s speed was reduced significantly to a velocity of about 940 mph (1,512 kph), a striking reduction relative to its 12,500 mph velocity when it first entered the atmosphere. At this point, the spacecraft was traveling at a velocity slow enough to safely deploy its supersonic parachute. And with a remaining altitude of about 7 miles (11 kilometers) from the surface, the parachute released with impeccable timing to vigilantly stick the landing.
Landing on Mars with Precision
Tucked safely inside a canister at the top of the backshell, the supersonic parachute, spanning 70.5 feet (21.5 meters) in diameter, waited patiently for its deployment. With less than three minutes left on the clock, the parachute needed to deploy at just the right moment in order to hit its target. Too early or too late could result in a calamitous touchdown for the Perseverance rover.
Normally, the parachute would just release as soon as the spacecraft hit a specific velocity, at which point it would open its parachute and land within the general vicinity of the target. This is how previous landings on Mars have operated. But Perseverance had a different approach in mind.
The Mars 2020 spacecraft employed a brand new technology to help stick the landing with much greater precision than any mission before it. Instead of releasing the parachute right away, Perseverance eagerly waited for just the right moment to “pull the trigger,” carefully surveying the terrain below while calculating its distance to the landing zone. And then, when its position relative to the surface was just right, it released its parachute and began slowing the vehicle down significantly for touchdown.
Fittingly, this new precision landing technology is known as Range Trigger. Part of Perseverance’s improved suite of EDL technologies, the Range Trigger helps the incoming spacecraft hit a very narrow target on the Martian surface. That target is formally known as the Landing Ellipse, an oval-shaped area that encompasses the intended landing zone for the rover. If the target is missed, the mission could be delayed by months or obstructed entirely.
The Range Trigger technology reduces the size of this Landing Ellipse by more than 50 percent, which allows the rover to land much closer to its primary region of interest. This opens up a whole new world of options for the rover. With a larger landing ellipse, scientists have to limit their selection to sites with a lot of open and safe terrain. But with a smaller ellipse, they can choose from a much larger list of sites that would otherwise be way too risky to land in due to hazards on the surface, like Jezero Crater.
By delivering the rover closer to its primary region of interest, the Range Trigger technology significantly reduces the rover’s driving commute. Many weeks and months are often spent traveling from the landing site to the rover’s worksite, so a technology that can get the rover closer to its target is highly invaluable for the overall success of the mission.
Avoiding Hazardous Terrain
So at just the right moment, the Mars 2020 spacecraft successfully opened its parachute and began significantly slowing the rover down for the remainder of its descent. And then, roughly 20 seconds after the parachute’s release, the heat shield was no longer needed and separated from the front of the aeroshell, falling towards the surface below.
At this moment, for the first time during its turbulent descent to the surface, the rover was directly exposed to the Martian atmosphere. And without the heat shield in the way, Perseverance was able to utilize a whole new suite of essential cameras and instruments onboard to lock its gaze onto the fast-approaching surface.
With no time to spare, roughly 30 seconds after heat shield separation, the rover activated its descent stage’s Landing Radar, quickly bouncing signals off the surface to calculate its altitude. In a very short period of time, the rover had to acquire as much information as possible about its position relative to the surface in order to avoid any potentially hazardous terrain below. And to do that, Perseverance utilized yet another brand new groundbreaking EDL technology to help guide the rover towards a safe touchdown, a sophisticated navigation system known as Terrain-Relative Navigation.
This state-of-the-art navigation system gave Perseverance the ability to estimate its position relative to the surface much more accurately. In previous missions, the spacecraft had to estimate its position before entering the Martian atmosphere and then again after entry, using radiometric data from NASA’s Deep Space Network. And then it had to use that data to determine where it was going to land. But that technique had a very high estimation error of about 1.2 to 1.8 miles (about 2–3 kilometers) upon entry, making it virtually impossible to land in places with unpredictable terrain.
For Perseverance, that kind of uncertainty was not an option. Jezero Crater was full of hazardous terrain that needed to be avoided. And the slightest bit of uncertainty could inadvertently guide the rover right into a cliff. So Perseverance came prepared. Using its advanced Terrain-Relative Navigation system, the rover was able to estimate its position at a moment when it was much closer to the surface, giving it the ability to evaluate its position with an accuracy of about 130 feet (40 meters) or better. That is remarkable!
Roughly 90 seconds following the deployment of its parachute, the rover reached a terminal velocity of about 200 miles per hour, a significant reduction from its 940 mph velocity during initial deployment. And at this point, with a little over a minute before touchdown, the rover had a very small window of time to gather as much information as possible about its surroundings to prepare for its final descent to the surface: it was ready to use Terrain-Relative Navigation.
Suspended beneath the parachute at an altitude of about 2.5 miles, the rover used its special wide-angle Lander Vision System Camera to scan the fast-approaching surface below, studying the terrain to identify familiar features on the ground. Looking downward, the camera rapidly snapped photos of the Martian surface, collecting as much data as possible in order to make a well-calculated estimation of its position relative to the ground.
The rover’s computer, known as the Rover Compute Element (RCE), carefully studied these photos to evaluate the rover’s coordinates. Prior to the mission, a very detailed map of Jezero Crater was constructed via images taken from several satellites in orbit around Mars (also known as Mars orbiters). Using these images, the Mars 2020 engineering team developed a comprehensive map of the safest locations for the rover to land, and they stored this map securely within Perseverance’s RCE in advance.
Armed with a detailed knowledge of the terrain below, Perseverance was able to use these orbital maps to analyze the photos taken with its Lander Vision System Camera. To determine its coordinates and pinpoint its current trajectory, the rover’s RCE carefully examined each photo and quickly compared them to its orbital map to search for familiar landmarks and calculate its position.
Once Perseverance gained a reliable estimation of its location, it was finally ready to make the critical decision to divert itself from danger if necessary. If any landing hazards were detected, the rover could autonomously adjust its course and quickly find the safest spot to land nearest its target, preparing Perseverance for the next climactic step in its journey to the surface.
Powered Descent to the Surface
With one minute left before touchdown, Perseverance had to take another critical and terrifying step to land safely on the Martian surface below. At a terminal velocity of 200 mph, the parachute was unable to slow the vehicle down any further. And at this speed, the rover would have smashed into the surface and been obliterated upon impact. So Perseverance had to find another way to reduce its velocity.
With about 6,900 feet (2,100 meters) from the surface, the rover and its descent stage cut itself free from the parachute and disconnected from its backshell. In a terrifying instant, the rover dropped, free-falling towards the surface without the safety of a parachute. And for a brief moment, the rover hurtled towards the surface under the gravity of the Red Planet. But then, within seconds, Perseverance promptly fired up the engines aboard its rocket-powered descent stage and drastically slammed on the brakes from the rover’s terrifying free-fall. And from this point forward, Perseverance made its final descent to the surface on the power of 8 rocket-powered engines.
The descent stage operates as the rover’s “jetpack,” with each of its 8 rocket-powered engines pointed downward in order to provide enough thrust needed to reduce the rover’s speed for touchdown. To avoid a collision with the backshell and its parachute, falling from close behind, the descent stage angled its thrusters and redirected the rover off to the side. With a safe landing site in mind, selected by the rover’s Terrain-Relative Navigation system, the descent stage adjusted its trajectory and guided Perseverance on a course to touch down securely on the surface.
With roughly 12 seconds from touchdown and about 66 feet (20 meters) from the surface, the descent stage nearly brought Perseverance to a complete halt and began to initiate what is known as the “skycrane” maneuver. At a velocity of 1.7 mph, the descent stage released the rover and slowly lowered it down to the surface on a set of cables measuring 21 feet (6.4 meters) in length. At this time, suspended beneath its cables, the rover unfolded itself and locked its legs and wheels into position for landing. And as soon as the rover’s wheels made contact with the ground, it swiftly cut itself loose from the cables and safely stuck the landing while the descent stage flew off to make its own landing a safe distance away from the rover.
Finally, after a nearly seven-month journey through the far reaches of space, from its impressive launch from Cape Canaveral to its remarkable descent through the Martian atmosphere, Perseverance successfully landed on the Red Planet. Full of nerves, mission control back at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California watched closely, anxiously waiting to learn whether the mission was a success or a disastrous failure. And on Feb. 18, 2021, after seven minutes of intensifying terror, mission control received confirmation that Perseverance had successfully touched down on the Martian surface.
Jezero Crater is an Exciting Place to Land
After nearly a decade of planning and years of strenuous hard work, the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover finally made it to the surface of Mars. With 6 wheels of aluminum planted safely on the ground, the 2,260-pound rover stood firmly on the rocky soil, surveying the surrounding landscape that made up the stunning Jezero Crater. Having finally reached its new home, Perseverance was eagerly ready to begin its long-awaited mission on the surface. But it would have to tread very carefully.
Mars is a dry, rocky planet. Filled with rusty red sand, steep slopes, large rocks, and multiple impact craters, the Red Planet is a seemingly cold, harsh, and hostile wasteland. Mars is extreme. With hidden dunes and large cliffs, Perseverance would need to be very mindful of its surroundings to avoid any unfortunate accidents. But thankfully, due to the rover’s fancy precision landing technologies, Perseverance landed in a relatively secure location within the borders of the Jezero Crater.
Jezero Crater itself is a relatively small impact crater spanning 28 miles (45 km) in diameter, just north of the Martian equator. The crater is positioned at the western edge of a vast flat plain known as the Isidis Planitia, which itself is located inside of its own giant impact basin spanning 750 miles (1,200 km) in diameter. The Isidis Planitia was created by a much larger meteorite impact, known as the Isidis Impact, roughly 3.9 billion years ago. And a much smaller meteorite impact created the Jezero Crater sometime later.
These impacts significantly changed the geology on Mars, particularly at the base of the craters. And the bowl-shaped cavity that these craters left behind provided the perfect conditions for liquid water to form giant lakes on the surface, potentially creating environments that may have been habitable for life in the distant past. Although no large standing bodies of liquid water exist on the surface today, evidence suggests that vast amounts of it were present on the surface billions of years ago. And where there is water, there is the potential for life.
Over 3.5 billion years ago, the Jezero Crater was full of water, forming an impressive lake with two channels with water flowing in and water flowing out. The inlet channel that brought water into the crater formed a beautifully preserved ancient river delta that deposited its sediments and clay minerals into the crater from the surrounding area. Under these conditions, there is a very real possibility that small microbial life could have lived and thrived in these lakes billions of years ago. And if that’s the case, signs of their remains very well may be present in these delta deposits, very much like what we see on Earth.
This makes Jezero Crater the perfect candidate for Perseverance to land in. Years ago, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter discovered that Jezero contains clays that can only be formed in the presence of water. Using a special spectrometer known as CRISM, the Reconnaissance Orbiter employed a set of specialized detectors to scan the area with visible, infrared, and near-infrared wavelengths, looking for a special kind of mineral residue that forms only in the presence of water. And that's exactly what it found: clay minerals and carbonates, which are commonly produced by life and are known to preserve evidence of it here on Earth. So this puts Jezero Crater at the top of the list of places to search for ancient life.
The Search For Life
This marks one of the primary science objectives for the Mars 2020 mission: to search for signs of ancient microbial life and determine whether life ever existed on Mars. Previous missions have already made quite a bit of progress in this search. For example, the Curiosity rover that landed in Gale Crater in 2012 found lots of chemistry and energy sources that could have supported microbial life in the past. And this confirmed that Mars very well may have been habitable for ancient life. But Perseverance is taking the next step. It will be the first rover mission ever designed to seek concrete evidence for whether life existed on the Red Planet.
#1: Studying Rocks for Habitability
Mars 2020 has 4 Science Objectives, each of which addresses pivotal astrobiology questions about whether or not Mars has ever supported life on its surface. The first objective is to study the rocks and the Martian landscape within Jezero in order to better understand its geological history. The goal is to paint a better picture of what the crater was like in the distant past: what the climate was like, whether its river delta was friendly to life, and how long life may have existed there (if at all).
To meet this objective, Perseverance will utilize an impressive suite of cameras and instruments to study rocks directly on the surface. In doing so, the Mars 2020 team back on Earth will carefully study these rocks to learn about the various types of rock and minerals present within Jezero’s landscape. They will look for things like carbonates, specific types of clays, and any other minerals that may hold promising signs of past microbial life.
#2: Searching for Biosignatures
The second objective aims to begin the search for signs of life itself. Once Perseverance has had a chance to study Jezero’s geological history, the Mars 2020 team will have a good idea of whether or not any locations within the crater were suitable for life. From there, the team will look for promising mineral deposits in hopes of finding preserved signs of biosignatures within the rocks of the Jezero landscape.
A biosignature is essentially any substance—whether it be a chemical element, an isotope, or a molecule — that provides scientific evidence of past or present life. So on Mars, Perseverance will closely study areas rich in clay and carbonates to look for these biosignatures, looking for special patterns in the chemistry of its rocks to find the first hopeful signs that tell us that biology happened here.
To search for these special signatures, Perseverance is equipped with a long list of state-of-the-art tools that it will use to acquire lots of information about its environment. Some of these tools include:
- The Mastcam-Z, an advanced panoramic camera that can study the Martian surface with a zoom lens that allows it to view distant objects up close.
- The SuperCam, a very powerful instrument that uses a camera and laser spectroscopy to examine the chemical composition of rocks by firing a laser at its targets that are beyond reach and analyzing the vaporized rock from a distance.
- The PIXL, a microfocus X-ray fluorescence spectrometer that uses X-ray beams to focus on tiny spots within the rock and soil to measure elemental chemistry at a sub-millimeter scale.
- And SHERLOC, a spectrometer that uses an ultraviolet laser and fine-scale imaging to search for organic compounds and minerals that have been altered by wet environments.
Together, these tools give Perseverance a remarkable suite of technologies to uncover any potential evidence of life that may be preserved within the rocks of Jezero.
#3: Collecting Samples to Return to Earth
The third objective involves the ambitious goal of collecting samples of Martian rock and soil and caching those samples on the surface for possible future return to Earth. To date, no science mission has ever returned samples from Mars to Earth. But Perseverance plans to change that. Over the course of the next year, the rover will collect a geologically diverse sample set of rock and soil from Jezero Crater. It will carefully document where those samples were taken along with any other relevant information. And then, it will find a location somewhere on the surface to store them for future retrieval.
The Mars 2020 team will make a concerted effort to collect as diverse of a sample set as possible. This is important. If these samples are ever successfully brought back to Earth, they need to represent the planet as a whole in order for scientists to gain a comprehensive understanding of its geological history. Therefore, Perseverence will need to collect a variety of rock and soil from within Jezero Crater.
To do this, the rover is equipped with a rotary percussive drill positioned at the end of the rover’s 7-foot-long robotic arm. Using its drill, the rover will extract core samples from the Martian rock and soil by penetrating the surface with one of its three interchangeable drill bits. Using the drill, each sample will be carefully collected and placed directly into a clean sample collection tube, where it will then be transferred to the rover’s belly to be hermetically sealed and temporarily stored before finding a safe place to drop the samples off on the surface.
Perseverance carries 38 empty tubes to store these samples in. And by the end of the mission, it will hopefully have filled at least 30 of them. The tubes were designed specifically to be safely brought back to Earth someday. So they will be securely deposited at a well-documented location for a future mission to pick up and safely return to Earth for more detailed study.
#4: Preparing Humans to Land on Mars
The first three science objectives all have one thing in common. They each have goals that are oriented towards considering the possibility of past microbial life. But the fourth objective is designed to do something entirely different: to test technologies that would help sustain human life on Mars and prepare for future human exploration.
There are several ways that Perseverance plans to do this. The first of which is through a special technology demonstration known as the Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment, or just MOXIE for short. MOXIE is an incredible technology experiment that aims to produce oxygen from the Martian atmosphere in order to produce propellant and a breathable air supply for future astronauts. This is important because astronauts are going to need liquid oxygen to get off of Mars and they’re going to need a good oxygen supply to breathe while they’re there.
But MOXIE is just a demonstration. Its purpose is to provide NASA with a proof of concept. Located inside the rover, it is only about the size of a car battery, whereas future oxygen generators on Mars would need to be 100 times larger than that to support human missions. For future astronauts to return safely from the surface of Mars, they will need about 33 to 50 tons of fuel, along with liquid oxygen made on Mars. And oxygen generators on the surface could potentially supply more than 75% of the propellant needed to make that happen.
So MOXIE is designed to prove that it can be done. And if it's successful, it could lead the way for future innovations such as improving designs for life support, launch vehicles, or any other system that could help humans live and work on Mars in the future.
Perseverance is also equipped with another unique technology known as the Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer, also known as MEDA. And this technology is particularly helpful for future human missions because it’s designed to measure and study the weather and dust patterns on Mars. Using a set of sensors located on the rover’s mast, the MEDA measures things like temperature, humidity, wind speed, and direction. And most importantly, it measures the shape, size, and quantity of Mars dust in the atmosphere.
Having a good working knowledge of the weather on Mars will be extremely invaluable to humans who want to live and work on Mars someday. MEDA will help future astronauts understand the weather conditions they will face when they're there. And this knowledge will help them understand how Mars dust may affect the health of the crew and how it may affect the performance of their equipment. Their safety will depend on accurate weather predictions, so the MEDA will collect as much data as it can to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the Martian atmosphere so that humans can be armed with the knowledge they need to land and work on Mars safely.
Perseverance also carries small pieces of spacesuit with it on Mars. Held within the rover’s SHERLOC instrument, Perseverance plans to experiment with this spacesuit material to see how well it can hold up in the Red Planet’s harsh atmosphere, which will aid NASA in designing Mars-resilient spacesuits in the future.
A lot to Look Forward to
Perseverance has a primary mission span of at least one Martian year (687 Earth days). During this time, the Mars 2020 team will be very busy making sure that everything goes as smoothly as possible. Surface operations will be conducting a very long list of incredible science experiments, studying the surface to help determine whether life ever existed on Mars, and preparing humans to land there one day.
And if that’s not enough, NASA is also testing a truly remarkable piece of technology on Mars while it’s there. Early this morning, on April 19, 2021, another extraordinary technology demonstration was tested that made Martian history. Perseverance carried with it a small helicopter named Ingenuity. And on this day, the Ingenuity Helicopter tested powered flight on another planet for the very first time in human history. And at 6:46 a.m. EDT, Ingenuity’s team received confirmation that the flight was successful, marking a truly extraordinary achievement for the Mars 2020 mission.
Needless to say, there will be a lot to do over the next two Earth years, and even more to look forward to. Landing Perseverance on Mars represents a pivotal moment for NASA, the United States, and the entire world. The Mars 2020 mission has some very ambitious goals, some of which have already been achieved. And the most exciting of those goals is Perseverance’s pursuit to find evidence of life on Mars.
If successful, this would be one of the most profound discoveries ever to be made in our species’ short-lived time in the cosmos. If we were to find evidence of life on Mars, it would completely change the course of human history. Everybody on planet Earth would think differently about what it means to be a human being living in the universe, seeking to answer some of the most sought after questions: Where did we come from? And are we alone in the universe?
But even if Perseverance does not discover signs of past life on Mars, it will still pave the way for human missions to Mars someday, bringing us one step closer to a world where humans live and work on the surface of the Red Planet.
To Be Continued…
