![]() The rover will characterize the planet’s geology and past climate, pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet, and be the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith (broken rock and dust). A key objective for Perseverance’s mission on Mars is astrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life. A camera aboard the descent stage captured this shot. This high-resolution still image is part of a video taken by several cameras as NASA’s Perseverance rover touched down on Mars on Feb. Mars was warmer and wetter in its distant past, and while previous exploration has determined the planet was habitable, Perseverance is tasked with determining whether it was actually inhabited. Over the coming years, Perseverance will attempt to collect 30 rock and soil samples in sealed tubes to be sent back to Earth sometime in the 2030s for lab analysis.Ībout the size of an SUV, the craft weighs a ton, is equipped with a seven-foot-long robotic arm, has 19 cameras, two microphones and a suite of cutting-edge instruments. Its predecessor Curiosity is still functioning eight years after landing on Mars. Its prime mission will last just over two years but it is likely to remain operational well beyond that. Perseverance was launched on Jand landed on the surface of Mars on Thursday. Credit: NASA Sounds From Mars: Filters Out Rover Self-Noise. Sounds From Mars: Includes Rover Self-Noise. Ingenuity will attempt the first powered flight on another planet and will have to achieve lift in an atmosphere that is just one percent the density of Earth's. "The team is still evaluating," she said. She said the team was preparing for a flight by the rover's small helicopter drone dubbed Ingenuity. "I am happy to report that Perseverance is healthy and is continuing with activities as we have been planning them," Samuels said. Jessica Samuels, Perseverance's surface mission manager, said the rover was operating as expected so far and engineers were conducting an intensive check of its systems and instruments. Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA's associate administrator for science, said the video of Perseverance's descent is "the closest you can get to landing on Mars without putting on a pressure suit." ![]() "These are really amazing videos," Watkins said. "This is the first time we've ever been able to capture an event like the landing on Mars," said Michael Watkins, director of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is managing the mission. It shows the heat shield dropping away after protecting Perseverance during its entry into the Martian atmosphere and the rover's touchdown in a cloud of dust in the Jezero Crater just north of the Red Planet's equator. The high-definition video clip, lasting three minutes and 25 seconds, shows the deployment of a red-and-white parachute with a 70.5-foot-wide (21.5-meter-wide) canopy. "What you hear there 10 seconds in is an actual wind gust on the surface of Mars picked up by the microphone and sent back to us here on Earth," said Dave Gruel, lead engineer for the camera and microphone system on Perseverance. NASA engineers played a 60-second recording. ![]() NASA also released the first video of last week's landing of the rover, which is on a mission to search for signs of past life on the Red Planet.Ī microphone did not work during the rover's descent to the surface, but it was able to capture audio once it landed on Mars. ![]()
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