Nasa Mars rover: Perseverance robot heads for daunting landing - BBC News 2021-02-17, 10(43 PM

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Nasa Mars rover: Perseverance robot heads for daunting landing - BBC News 2021-02-17, 10(43 PM

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Nasa's Perseverance rover carries technology to help it avoid landing hazards

The moment of truth has arrived for the US space agency's Perseverance
rover.

The six-wheeled robot is fast approaching Mars aQer a seven-month, 470-

million-km journey from Earth for what unquestionably will be the most
challenging part of its mission.

It's got to put itself down safely on the Red Planet - a task that has befuddled
so many spacecraQ before it.

But if Perseverance is successful, it has an amazing opportunity to find signs

of past life on Mars.

Never has a science mission gone to the planet with so sophisticated a suite of
instruments; never has a robot been targeted at so promising a location.

Jezero Crater, the intended touchdown zone, bears all the hallmarks in
satellite imagery of once having held a giant lake. And where there's been
abundant water, perhaps there's been biology as well.

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Key timings for Perseverance's landing

Contact with atmosphere: 20:48 GMT

Parachute deployed: 20:52 GMT

Powered descent: 20:54 GMT

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Nasa Mars rover: Perseverance robot heads for daunting landing - BBC News 2021-02-17, 10(43 PM

Wheels down: 20:55 GMT

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Perseverance will siQ and drill into the sediments to look for traces of ancient
microbial activity. The most propitious examples will be packaged for return to
Earth by later missions.

"But before we can get that surface mission going, we have to land on Mars
and that is always a challenging feat," said Matt Wallace, Nasa's deputy project
manager for Perseverance.

"This is one of the most difficult manoeuvres we do in the space business.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas locked
Almost 50% of the spacecraQ sent to the surface of Mars have failed, so we
down in London
know we have our work cut out to get down safely at Jezero."

UAE space mission returns first image of Mars

The camera capturing Mars' craters and canyons

Nasa's Perseverance rover is bearing down on Mars

How this Mars landing will be

different to before

NASA/JPL-CALTECH
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One tonne of high technology: Seven instruments, multiple cameras, microphones and a
big drill

Perseverance is on a path to engage the Martian atmosphere late on Thursday

(GMT).

It will plunge into the rarefied air at more than 20,000km/h and it will have to
reduce this to near-walking pace by the time it reaches the surface - a
daunting prospect that Nasa engineers half-jokingly call the "seven minutes of
terror". Are frozen wind turbines to blame
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The robot's protective capsule will do most of the work of scrubbing off the
entry speed but a supersonic parachute and a rocket jetpack, or "Sky crane",
will be needed for the last three minutes of braking and surface placement.

Much is made of the difficulty of mounting Mars missions, and it's true many

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Nasa Mars rover: Perseverance robot heads for daunting landing - BBC News 2021-02-17, 10(43 PM

have failed. But the statistics actually favour Perseverance.

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Of the 14 landing attempts at the planet, eight have been successful - all of
them American. Indeed, Nasa has only got it wrong once, way back in 1999.

Engineers will be following proceedings at mission control at the Jet

Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

Telemetry from the rover during its descent will be relayed by an overflying
satellite - the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The team will also be listening to a BBC Culture: The revolutionary
series of low-data tones coming back direct from the robot itself. singers erased from history

A signal confirming touchdown should arrive at Earth at 20:55 GMT.

With luck, we could even be looking at the first pictures of Jezero just a few
Elsewhere on the BBC
minutes aQerwards.

Why is Jezero Crater so interesting?

Jezero is named aQer a town in Bosnia-Herzegovina. In some Slavic languages
the word "jezero" also means "lake" - which should explain the fascination.

This 500m-deep bowl once saw huge volumes of water flow in through the
Football phrases
western wall to pool on the crater floor.
15 sayings from around the world
Where the water entered, it even deposited sediments to form a delta.
Perseverance will try to land next to this feature.

Jezero displays multiple rock types, including clays and carbonates, that have
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the potential to preserve the type of organic molecules that would hint at life's
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Nasa Mars rover: Perseverance robot heads for daunting landing - BBC News 2021-02-17, 10(43 PM

ancient lake's shoreline. It's here that Perseverance could find what on Earth
are called stromatolites. Widow contests Larry King's
handwritten will 2
"In some lakes you can get microbial mats and carbonates interacting to form
these big structures, these large layered mounds," explained science team-
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member Dr Briony Horgan from Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana.
Australia 3
"If we see anything like that kind of structure in Jezero, we'll be making a
beeline straight for it because that could be the holy grail of Mars
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While the scientists will be engrossed in what Jezero's rock types and their
chemistry can tell us about past life on Mars, the public can simply lose
themselves in the sensation of experiencing another planet in unprecedented
detail.

The rover will land with more than 20 cameras (four are on the Sky crane
which will be sent away to crash aQer touchdown). These work in colour. Some
are zoomable. They'll also be making movies. Scully & Scully

In addition, two microphones are going down to the surface. We'll hear the
sound of the wind rushing past the rover, and the noise the robot's wheels
make as they crunch across the rocky terrain.

Of huge interest will be the experiment to fly a mini-helicopter that's hitched a

ride with Perseverance. This will be released on to the ground from under the
robot in the weeks aQer landing and should make at least five brief flights. It is

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Nasa Mars rover: Perseverance robot heads for daunting landing - BBC News 2021-02-17, 10(43 PM

being described as a "Wright brothers" moment on another world.

A helicopter the size of a Chihuahua will explore Mars

Perseverance has initial funding from Nasa to operate for one Mars year (687
Earth days).

In that time it's expected to cache a couple of dozen drilled rock samples in
small tubes, which will be leQ on the surface.

Nasa and the European Space Agency (Esa) have devised a multi-billion-dollar
plan to go fetch these cylinders towards the end of the decade.

It will be a complex endeavour involving a second rover, a Mars rocket and a

huge satellite to ship the Jezero materials home.

"We want to send these follow-up missions in 2026 so that we can get the
samples back on Earth in 2031," said Dr David Parker, the director for robotics
and human spaceflight at Esa.

Retuning samples is the logical - and necessary - next step in Mars

exploration.

Even if Perseverance discovers something that looks like a bio-signature, the

evidence is almost certain to be contested - as claims for ancient life's traces
here on Earth usually are.

Bringing rocks back for further, more sophisticated analysis is therefore likely
the only way any arguments about past biology on the Red Planet will be
settled.

Mars Sample Return illustrated

guide

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Nasa Mars rover: Perseverance robot heads for daunting landing - BBC News 2021-02-17, 10(43 PM

Click here to see how Nasa and Esa will bring rocks from Mars to Earth.

Airbus to build 'first interplanetary cargo ship'

Europe pushes ahead with 'dune buggy' Mars rover

Related Topics

Geology Mars Space exploration Nasa European Space Agency

Nasa Perseverance Mars rover

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