After the successful launch from Cape Canaveral
air force station in Florida on July 30, 2020,
NASA's Mars 2020 Perseverance rover mission
is on its way to the Red Planet to search
for signs of ancient life and collect samples
to send back to Earth.
The Perseverance rover is part of NASA’s
ambitious Mars Exploration Program which is
aimed for long-term robotic exploration of
the Red Planet.
With the launch of perseverance rover, NASA
has begun another historic mission of exploration.
Perseverance will seek signs of ancient microbial
life forms that scientists believe could have
populated the Red Planet billions of years
ago.
NASA says it spent more than $2.4 billion
to design, build and prepare the perseverance
rover for launch.
And after adding the operational cost of the
rover on Mars for around two earth years after
landing, the total mission is expected to
cost around $2.7 billion.
In comparison in 2.7 billion dollars, we could
power around 1 lakh homes for 20 years.
So why NASA is spending such a huge amount
of money on 1 mission?
What technologies are used in perseverance
rover which makes it so special?
NASA’s Perseverance rover is the third mission
to Mars launched in July month of 2020.
On the 19th of July United Arab Emirates launch
its Hope orbiter.
And on July 23, China launched its all-in-one
mission, consisting of an orbiter, lander
and rover to the mars.
But before moving forward let’s understand
what is orbiter, lander and rover in brief.
Orbiters fly around the planet making observations
like weather and mapping, and often acting
as communications relays for experiments on
the surface.
Landers touch down and perform experiments
within reach of its robotic arms, usually
focusing on weather observations and soil
analysis.
And Rovers are 6 wheeled utility vehicles
that trundle slowly around on the surface,
taking pictures and performing a variety of
geological and chemical tests and analyses.
NASA has already successfully landed 3 rovers
named sprit, opportunity and curiosity on
the mars surface and if successful perseverance
will become 4th rover of NASA landed on the
mars.
In 2019 India had launched chandrayan- 2 mission
to send pragyan rover to the moon surface.
But unfortunately, the Vikram lander which
was carrying the rover crashed-landed in September
2019 and was destroyed upon impact with the
Moon's surface.
So, coming back to the perseverance rover,
it is 10 feet long, 9 feet wide and 7 feet
tall car-sized rover.
The Perseverance rover requires electrical
power to operate.
Without power, the rover cannot move, use
its science instruments, or communicate with
Earth.
Perseverance carries a radioisotope power
system.
This power system produces a dependable flow
of electricity using the heat of plutonium's
radioactive decay as its "fuel."
The Perseverance rover will target a landing
inside the 45-kilometer wide Jezero Crater
on Mars which is home to an ancient river
delta that scientists believe filled the crater
some 3.5 billion to 3.9 billion years ago.
Scientists hope to find signatures of ancient
life in the rocks and sediments deposited
in the dried-up delta.
Also, it is equipped with a small helicopter
named Ingenuity Mars Helicopter, which will
remain attached to the belly of Perseverance
for the flight to Mars.
Once the rover is on Mars and powers up its
science instruments, one of its first tasks
will be to place NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter
onto the surface.
Human beings have never flown a helicopter
outside of our own Earth’s atmosphere, so
this will be a very historic moment when a
tiny 1.8-kilogram helicopter will try to become
the first aircraft to fly through the atmosphere
of another planet.
NASA approved adding the helicopter to the
perseverance rover mission in 2018.
This tiny helicopter has cost around $80 million
to design and develop and will cost another
$5 million to operate.
The atmosphere at the Martian surface is about
1 percent the density of Earth’s which limits
the performance of a rotorcraft like the Ingenuity
helicopter because helicopter’s rotors need
to spin at 2400 rpm which is about 10 times
faster than a helicopter flying in Earth’s
atmosphere.
The purpose of Ingenuity is a pure test flight,
it does not carry any scientific instruments
but with the help of experience gained from
ingenuity, future rotorcraft could be dispatched
to other planets with more sophisticated scientific
instruments.
But the main scientific instrument perseverance
rover equipped with, which can provide a tremendous
advantage to the future mars mission is MOXIE
which stands for Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource
Utilization Experiment.
While most of Perseverance's seven instruments
are geared toward learning more about the
planet's geology and astrobiology, the MOXIE
instrument's job is focused on missions yet
to come.
It is designed to demonstrate that converting
Martian carbon dioxide into oxygen is possible,
if successful this technology could become
a stepping stone in mars mission which will
provide rocket fuel and breathable air to
the astronauts.
So technically astronauts can stay on mars
as long as they want and also they don’t
need to bring the rocket fuel which will take
them back to the earth, because they can produce
the return fuel on mars itself.
This technology will also help towards the
permanent human settlement on Mars.
A company like SpaceX has a sole aim of developing
permanent human settlement on Mars.
And SpaceX is using Methane as a fuel for
its starship spacecraft which can be produced
on mars.
Along with MOXIE, perseverance carries 6 other
scientific instruments designed to measure
chemical and mineral makeup and 23 cameras
to record videos and capture 360-degree panoramas.
So successful mission of perseverance rover
is a very very profound first step in understanding
our place in the universe.
It will reveal many hidden insights of a red
planet and will become a stepping stone for
future mars missions.
