Tag: Perseverance

Perseverance Rover Stores First Mars Rock Sample

SPACE reports that NASA’s Perseverance rover stored its first Mars rock sample Monday. Perseverance is to collect several dozen more rock samples during its mission. NASA Science Mission Directorate head Thomas Zurbuchen said Monday, “Just as the Apollo moon missions demonstrated the enduring scientific value of returning samples from other worlds for analysis here on our planet, we will be doing the same with the samples Perseverance collects as part of our Mars Sample Return program.”
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NASA’s Perseverance Rover Begins Science Mission On Mars

The Daily Mail (UK) reports that NASA’s Perseverance rover has commenced its science mission on Mars, starting with a move away from its touchdown zone June 1. As part of its science mission, the rover will search “for signs of ancient microscopic life,” and study the Jezero Crater’s “geology and look for signs of past habitability.” The rover also will “collect rock and sediment samples, which the US space agency hopes to bring back to Earth with a future mission for further study.”
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NASA’s Perseverance Rover Turns Cameras to Investigation of Jezero Crater

The Daily Mail (UK) reports that NASA’s Perseverance rover “has switched from photographing the Ingenuity helicopter’s test flights, to searching for signs of long gone Martian life.” Using “its suite of cameras, Perseverance has been taking images of rocks on the floor of” the Jezero crater, “which was once a lakebed billions of years ago.” Data from the rover “will help scientists create a timeline of when an ancient lake formed there, when it dried, and when sediment began piling up in the delta that formed in the crater long ago.” Understanding “this timeline should help date rock samples – to be collected later in the mission – that might preserve a record of ancient microbes.”
Full Story (Daily Mail)

Perseverance’s MOXIE Instrument Converts Martian Carbon Dioxide Into Oxygen for First Time

SPACE reports that on Tuesday, the Perseverance rover used its Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (MOXIE) instrument “to generate oxygen from the thin, carbon dioxide-dominated Martian atmosphere for the first time, demonstrating technology that could both help astronauts breathe and help propel the rockets that get them back home to Earth.” MOXIE “produces oxygen from carbon dioxide, expelling carbon monoxide as a waste product. The conversion process occurs at temperatures around 1,470 degrees Fahrenheit (800 degrees Celsius), so MOXIE is made of heat-tolerant materials and features a thin gold coating to keep potentially damaging heat from radiating outward into Perseverance’s body.” The MOXIE “team warmed the instrument up for two hours yesterday, then had it crank out oxygen for an hour.”
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Scientists Using Perseverance Rover to Study Mysterious Green Rock Found on Mars

SPACE reported that NASA’s Perseverance rover’s SuperCam laser is studying a green rock that the rover discovered on the Red Planet. The laser works by creating “a cloud of vaporized rock, the composition of which can be analyzed by SuperCam’s cameras and spectrometers.” Scientists “hope that over time, the laser will give us more information about the strange rock’s composition, which could tell scientists whether it formed in place or was transported there by some process. If it didn’t form at its current location, water may have carried it to Jezero Crater or it could be a meteorite like the one that the Curiosity rover spotted in 2014.”
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Perseverance Rover Flexes Robotic Arm for First Time on Mars

SPACE reports that NASA officials gave an update from the Mars Perseverance Rover’s Twitter account Wednesday, which tweeted, “This week I’ve been doing lots of health checkouts, getting ready to get to work. … I’ve checked many tasks off my list, including instrument tests, imaging, and getting my arm moving. Warming up for a marathon of science.” Perseverance’s robotic arm has flexed for the first time since arriving on Mars, unfurling to a total length of seven feet. The arm holds the rover’s “drill that will collect samples, … as well as the tools that will store those samples.” NASA will provide an official mission update during a Friday news conference, to be held at 3:30 p.m. EST.
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NASA Releases Video, Audio from Perseverance Landing on Mars

ABC News reports that NASA “released stunning new video for the first time Monday from its Perseverance rover’s audacious landing on Mars last week.” The video, “shot from multiple cameras, captures the rover’s entry, descent and landing on the red planet’s Jezero Crater.” NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) Director Michael Watkins said, “This is the first time we’ve been able to actually capture an event like the landing of a spacecraft on Mars.”
Full Story (ABC News)

NASA Video

NASA’s Perseverance Rover Successfully Touches Down on Mars

ABC News reports that after a tense, seven-minute descent Thursday afternoon, NASA’s Perseverance rover successfully landed on Mars. After a “seven-month journey through the cosmos,” Perseverance touched down on the Red Planet’s Jezero Crater at 3:55 p.m. ET. Shortly after landing, “the rover, nicknamed ‘Percy,’ sent its first image back to Earth.“ Thursday’s landing was the finale in over a decade of work by NASA scientists and engineers, “but there was no guarantee the landing would go smoothly – only about 50% of all pervious Mars landing attempts have succeeded, according to NASA.” The rover’s successful journey is expected to “help pave the way for future human exploration of Mars.”
Full Story (ABC News)