Launch day for the NASA’s Mars 2020 mission is finally here. The launch of the new Mars rover Perseverance will take place around 7:50 A.M. EDT Thursday, July 30, using an Atlas V-541 rocket from historic Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.
It will land in the Jezero Crater on Mars on February 18, 2021; the landing date will remain the same even if launch gets delayed by a few days.
Perseverance is the most sophisticated rover NASA has ever sent to Mars. It will search for signs of ancient microbial life, characterize the planet’s geology and climate, collect carefully selected and documented rock and sediment samples for possible return to Earth, and pave the way for human exploration beyond the Moon.
There are plenty of good articles describing the mission, so we will provide just a brief summary here, so that we can be ready to watch the launch Thursday morning.
Here are links to the NASA website that will provide live coverage of the launch.
The Atlas V rocket has been rolled out to the launch pad and is ready to go, weather permitting.
Mission overview -
The science instruments -
- Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (MOXIE) — will produce oxygen from Mars’ atmosphere. Oxygen will be required in future crewed missions for supporting astronauts and for use in rocket engines. MOXIE operates at 800° C, requiring a sophisticated thermal isolation system, including input gas preheating and exhaust gas cooling.
- Planetary Instrument for X-ray Lithochemistry (PIXL) — will search for signs of past microbial life on Mars.
- Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman and Luminescence for Organics & Chemicals (SHERLOC) — camera, spectrometers, and a laser to search for organics and minerals
- Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer (MEDA) — a weather station to monitor wind direction and velocity, local temperature and humidity, and the amount and size of dust particles in the atmosphere
- Radar Imager for Mars’ Subsurface Experiment (RIMFAX) — ground penetrating radar to study the internal structure of Mars
- SuperCam — an instrument suite that can provide imaging, chemical composition analysis, and mineralogy in rocks and regolith from a distance.
- Mastcam-Z — super zoom stereo camera. Can build 360-degree color and stereo panoramas for rover driving and science.
- A total of 23 cameras and 2 microphones.
Power
Like Curiosity, Perseverance is powered by a radioisotope thermoelectric generator generator (MMRTG) which uses 4.8 kilograms of plutonium dioxide as the source of steady supply of heat that is converted to about 110W (!) of electrical power for over 14 years. Two lithium-ion rechargeable batteries provide energy storage. The rover Opportunity used solar panels and could not survive a prolonged dust storm two years ago.
NASA’s Mars Helicopter, Ingenuity, will be the first to demonstrate powered flight on another world. It is a technology demonstration and assessment experiment and is not critical to the primary mission. It will provide a scouting service for Perseverance by surveying the area around the rover, flying in the thin atmosphere and low gravity of Mars.
Perseverance’s journey to the launch pad. Another 291 million miles to go.
The Trip to Mars
The figure below shows the trajectory of the spacecraft over the next 7 months, which is a straight shot without any gravitational sling slots around other solar system bodies. Every 26 months, Earth, Mars and the Sun align for the most efficient, least energy-consuming path between Earth and Mars, similar to what is shown below.
The Landing Sequence
The complex landing sequence is also known as the "seven minutes of terror". For the first time, the landing will be recorded using onboard cameras.
The Landing Site
FYI — No other agency besides NASA has successfully landed Rovers and Landers on the Martian surface. Out of total of 20 landing missions, only 8 have succeeded, all by NASA. NASA had one failure; all 11 missions by the Russians and Europeans have resulted in failure.
Jezero (meaning lake) crater is about 49.0 km in diameter. Thought to have once been flooded with water, the crater contains a fan-delta deposit rich in clays. The lake in the crater was present when valley networks were forming on Mars. Clays form in the presence of water, so this area probably once held water and maybe life in ancient times.
A flyover view of the Jezero Crater, the new home of the Perseverance rover.
Sample Return
The plan is to transport back to earth, rock and soil samples collected by Perseverance, in a future mission.
As described in www.jpl.nasa.gov/...
- NASA will deliver a lander with a NASA rocket (the Mars Ascent Vehicle) and ESA’s Sample Fetch Rover.
- The fetch rover will gather the cached samples and carry them to the lander for transfer to the ascent vehicle; samples could also be delivered by Perseverance.
- ESA will put a spacecraft in orbit at Mars.
- The ascent vehicle will then launch a special container holding the samples into Mars orbit.
- The orbiter will rendezvous with and capture the orbiting samples in order to return them to Earth.
- NASA will provide the payload module for the orbiter, performing the capture and containment of the orbiting samples at Mars and landing the samples on Earth.
Other Missions
This is the last of 3 missions to Mars this summer. First was an orbiter mission from the UAE, followed by a lander+rover mission by China.
Epilogue
I will add more info to the diary as I get time. I hope you will follow the links and learn more about this exciting mission and watch the launch tomorrow morning.
Further Reading
- mars.nasa.gov/…
- Perseverance (rover) — en.wikipedia.org/…
- Mars 2020 overview — www.jpl.nasa.gov/…
- Mars 2020 Perseverance Launch Press Kit — www.jpl.nasa.gov/…
- Mars 2020 rover mission of NASA/JPL — directory.eoportal.org/...
- Jezero (crater) — en.wikipedia.org/...
- Why Go To Mars? And other Planets and Moons. — www.dailykos.com/…
- Turn Mars Blue? — www.dailykos.com/…
- Is There Life on Mars? - www.dailykos.com/…
- Mars Landings: Successes and Failures — www.dailykos.com/...
Webcast link -