![\"Perseverance-Touches-Down-on-Mars-today-rapidnews-dailyrapid\"](\"https:\/\/dailyrapidnews.com\/eng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/Perseverance-Touches-Down-on-Mars-today-rapidnews-dailyrapid-1.jpg\")
<\/p>\nNASA is gearing up for “seven minutes of terror” as it prepares to land a new robotic rover on the surface of Mars.<\/p>\n
After a seven-month journey, Perseverance will attempt to land on the Red Planet, sending the first signals back about 7:55am (AEDT) tomorrow.<\/p>\n
To be successful, the SUV-sized spacecraft will need to complete a complex series of steps made famous by Curiosity, the last rover to land on Mars in 2012.<\/p>\n
But while Perseverance looks like its predecessor, its mission is very different.<\/p>\n
Perseverance is the first rover NASA has sent to Mars with the explicit goal of searching for signs of ancient life, said Thomas Zurbuchen, head of NASA’s science mission.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
“It will attempt to answer a question that has eluded humanity for a generation: whether life has ever existed elsewhere beyond our own planet,” Dr Zurbuchen said.<\/p>\n
Going along for the ride is a miniature helicopter called Ingenuity \u2014 NASA’s first attempt to fly a drone on another planet.<\/p>\n
And it carries experiments that will lay the groundwork for future human missions to Mars.<\/p>\n
Perseverance is also the first in a series of missions that will eventually bring samples of rocks back to Earth.<\/p>\n
“This is by far the most ambitious set of missions to Mars in history,” deputy project scientist Ken Williford said.<\/p>\n
But first it has to land. And that’s not easy.<\/p>\n
Once on the surface, Perseverance can use its collection of 25 cameras to take 360-degree colour photos, looking at Mars with both extraordinary reach and detail.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can resolve features on the millimetre scale close in to the rover and on the centimetre scale off at the distance. We can see, for example, something and resolve something the size of a housefly at the length of a football field,\u201d said Jim Bell of Arizona State University in Tempe.<\/p>\n
Bell is the principal investigator for the two Mastcam-Z cameras, each about the size of a can of tennis balls, that give Perseverance its stereo vision.<\/p>\n
Perseverance will be bringing microphones to Mars for the first time, said Sylvestre Maurice, deputy principal investigator for the mission\u2019s SuperCam suite, which comprises\u00a0a camera, laser and spectrometers.<\/p>\n
The microphones will enable scientists to hear the wind on Mars for the first time, which should give clues about turbulence in the atmosphere and temperature changes.<\/p>\n
The laser hitting the rocks will also make sounds, said Maurice.<\/p>\n
\u201cBy just listening to that, we can infer what is the hardness of the rock,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis mission is going to be a feast for the eyes and ears,\u201d said Beegle.<\/p>\n
Perseverance will also be carrying a key innovation that will eventually help scientists get perspectives they cannot otherwise achieve \u2014\u00a0a petite, autonomous helicopter called Ingenuity.<\/p>\n
Similar in appearance to a recreational drone found on Earth, Ingenuity is a technology demonstrator that will gather data on how the aircraft operates in an atmosphere that is \u201cextremely thin \u2014 one percent compared to what we have at Earth,\u201d said MiMi Aung, NASA\u2019s Ingenuity project manager.<\/p>\n
What is learned could help develop helicopters that could act as long-range scouts for rovers, get close-in photos of hard-to-reach locations like cliffsides and carry samples back to a central location.<\/p>\n
\u201cLarger versions could be an independent explorer directly talking to orbiters and relaying data back to Earth,\u201d said Bob Ballerina, Ingenuity\u2019s chief engineer, during a February webinar held by NASA and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.<\/p>\n
MOXIE, the Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment, is designed to convert carbon dioxide from Mars\u2019 atmosphere to usable oxygen, a key capability for supporting broader exploration.<\/p>\n
\u201cLiquid oxygen is an excellent rocket propellant for the return trip on eventual human missions,\u201d explained Jeff Sheehy, chief engineer at NASA\u2019s Space Technology Mission Directorate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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