Perseverance successfully landed on the red planet on February 18th, 2021, and is the newest rover to join NASA’s Mars rover family. Its mission is to seek out traces of ancient Martian life and explore the geology of Mars. Perseverance holds some of the most advanced technology ever sent into space to reveal great discoveries about our planet’s neighbor. Continue reading to learn about the newest technology Perseverance has to offer!
MOXIE
The Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment, or MOXIE, is an experiment to produce oxygen from the atmosphere of Mars. Mars’ atmosphere is mostly made up of carbon dioxide and contains less than 1% of oxygen. Through MOXIE, oxygen can be sustainable on Mars, and if successful, it can provide oxygen for future human missions on Mars. This oxygen would be crucial for breathing, but it will also be important to farming an oxygen fuel source to power return missions from Mars to Earth. By producing fuel on Mars, it lowers the weight of departing spacecraft from Earth and creates a cycle of fuel between the two planets.
Ingenuity
The Ingenuity helicopter is a small aircraft that was sent to Mars alongside Perseverance. The helicopter was designed to test powered flight on the surface of Mars for the first time. Mars has about a third of Earth’s gravity and an atmosphere that is as dense as 1% of Earth’s atmosphere. These conditions make it much harder to fly an aircraft since the gravity and atmosphere make it harder to create the lift needed for the helicopter to fly. Ingenuity's test flights can provide information for other possible options of aircraft in future Mars missions. Helicopters can provide land surveying, scouting, and resource transporting and could potentially aid future Mars astronauts.
MEDA
The Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer, or MEDA, is an onboard weather station for Perseverance. The Martian climate is very dusty and can influence temperature and weather on the surface of the planet. The weather conditions are important for Persevereance’s systems and health, as dust weather can be harmful to the rover (Past rover Opportunity lost communications due to a dust storm). Recording Martian weather is also crucial to any future human mission on Mars to ensure astronauts are prepared for long dust days.
Cameras
Perseverance is equipped with multiple high-tech cameras to aid in its mission that will help in collecting data.
Mastcam-Z is a pair of cameras used to mimic human sight but at a better scale. It can take high-quality video, panoramas, and 3-D images with a powerful zoom lens that will aid Perseverance in collecting data on rocks and signs of ancient life.
The SuperCam is a laser camera that can break down and analyze broken rock to determine the elemental composition using spectrometry. Its main goal is to find any hints of organic compounds that support the idea of previous Martian life.
The PIXL camera uses X-rays to determine chemical elements of microscopic rocks or particles.
The SHERLOC and WATSON cameras are used jointly to provide higher-detail photos. The SHERLOC camera is a macro camera that can take extreme close-ups, while the WATSON camera can take broader photos to back-up any data collected from the other camera, such as fine-scaled photos of surface textures and structures.
The released photos from NASA offer some extraordinary views of the red planet! Check out the link below to see Perseverance's best photos from Mars:
https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/multimedia/images/
Happy exploring Perseverance!
Written by: Kaylee Barrera
Sources:
“Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover.” NASA Mars, mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/. Accessed 9 Mar. 2021.
“Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer (MEDA).” NASA Mars, mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/spacecraft/instruments/meda. Accessed 9 Mar. 2021.
“Mars Helicopter.” NASA Mars, mars.nasa.gov/technology/helicopter. Accessed 9 Mar. 2021.
“Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (MOXIE).” NASA Mars, mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/spacecraft/instruments/moxie. Accessed 9 Mar. 2021.
“Rover Cameras.” NASA Mars, mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/spacecraft/rover/cameras/#Science-Cameras. Accessed 9 Mar. 2021.
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