Perseverance: Preparing for humanity on Mars
Introduction
The Perseverance rover is a mission that went to Mars on 30 July 2020, taking off with it our hopes that it would be the first Martian rover to send back samples of the soil there. I thought it would be a good topic for today’s blog so I researched it and today I will explain all of it to you in simple words. And do read till the end (There is a bonus part).
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| Image Source - Google | Image by - BBC | Perseverance |
The beginning
Even after the success of Curiosity, NASA’s Mars Exploration Program was in great uncertainty due to budget cuts. They had been launching missions every two years and now they had no mission planned after 2013! In 2011, the Planetary Science Decadal Survey gave NASA the idea to plan a Mars Sample Return campaign between 2013 and 2022. In this, they would get samples back from Mars to study them here on earth. The budget was only $2.5 billion.
The persevering technology of Perseverance
An Atlas-V541 was used to launch the spacecraft into orbit. It weighs 100 kg more than Curiosity. The rover will land at Jezero Crater, a large crater believed to be a lake earlier. It also has two streams entering it which are dried but would have once been the inlets and outlets of the lake. Perseverance from there took a 7-month journey and finally landed on the Martian surface. There, it used instruments such as SAM and MOXIE, etc. let us take the main ones step by step.
MMRTG(Multi-mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator) - It is the tool that will power things up. It generates electricity by converting the heat from the natural decay of the isotopes into electricity. It uses a simple process known as the Seebeck effect.
MOXIE - This is a VERY interesting instrument as it can take in Martian CO₂ and then change it into oxygen. It does not use the technology used by those on the ISS but a different one. It requires up to 168 W greater than the 110 W RTG can generate at a time. It is also supplemented by two lithium-ion batteries for the same reason.
The core sampling drill - It is the drill on perseverance that will extract Martian soil in cylindrical tubes. Then it will submit the sample into a rotating carousel inside. Due to the rotation, the sample will come on the belly part and there the rover will click photos of it. After and before that it will calculate the volume too. Then it will drop the samples at a designated place on Mars. Now, this is the exciting part. ESA plans a future mission to Mars in 2026 which will go there to pick up the samples dropped by perseverance and then launch them to an orbiter waiting for them in Martian orbit. From there, it will bring the samples back to Earth.
The Sherloc - It will look for biological signs on the surface of Mars
Other sensors include MEDA, SuperCam, RIMFAX, etc.
There are also microphones there.
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| Image Source - Google | Image by - BBC | Parts of Perseverance |
(Bonus) Ingenuity
The ingenuity is the first helicopter that will be flying on another planet. It will rotate its blades at a speed of 2500-2800 rpm because Mars has only 1% of the Earth’s atmosphere. The whole power Ingenuity uses is equal to that of 3 phone batteries. If you fly at night (Martian) then two-thirds of the energy is used to keep the helicopter warm. In such a condition, the helicopter flies for only 90 seconds. The interesting thing is that this is not a science experiment. It is just a test to see if such technology can work. It is very noisy if flown on earth but over there it is quiet. It is completely autonomous as if it would be controlled by an RC on Earth, then there would be a 20 min lag between the command and the action.
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| Image Source - Google | Image by - BBC | Ingenuity |
Perseverance is a rover that is not just going to study Mars but it will also prepare us to go and live there. It has done its best to live up to its name. Perseverance.
perseverance
/pəːsɪˈvɪər(ə)ns/
noun
persistence in doing something despite difficulty or delay in achieving success.
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