After nearly a year in space, the rover Perseverance lands on Mars today. Once it enters the atmosphere of Mars, the billion-dollar robot from NASA it will start its not simple process of landing on the surface of the red planet, which will involve speeds of more than 20 thousand km per hour. 6824p
The difficult process of landing on Mars 5c6c1e
A Perseverance lands on Mars in the midst of many doubts of lay people, and so we will explain them here. Perseverance is a robot that has a lot in common with the probe Curiosity, which is still operational on Mars today. Both missions were aimed at exploring and understanding Mars, but the Perseverance takes the performance and exploration learning gained from years of company activity Curiosity and works it better, such as adding aluminum wheels that last longer than those present in the Curiosity.
That's why too, the Perseverance will feature more exploration equipment, such as a laser-guided spectroscope to search for ancient signatures, and a complex system to collect and catalog various Martian stones, already in anticipation of a future Mars mission. NASA to collect these examples and analyze on Earth.
The main feature of the mission Perseverance is the delivery of the small helicopter Ingenuity in Mars. The helicopter aims to show the first flight on another planet, and as Mars has a very thin atmosphere compared to Earth, which can make it impossible for the helicopter to leave the ground, NASA is willing to do this experiment.
However, reaching the surface of the red planet will not be simple. When approaching the planet, the Perseverance will abandon its travel module, leaving only an aerodynamic protection bed to protect itself, along with the land module. The spacecraft then enters the atmosphere at a speed of 20 km per hour, and will have to lose this speed in a maximum of 7 minutes to reach the ground without destroying itself. According to calculations by NASA, about 80 seconds after entering the atmosphere of Mars, temperatures on the outside of the Perseverance reach 1.300° Celsius.
After about 4 minutes in the atmosphere, the parachutes will activate, and the aerodynamic protective layer will be discarded. With 4km remaining to reach the Martian soil, the vehicle will activate its Terrain Navigation System, but different from Curiosity, which landed in an environment without major obstacles, Perseverance lands on Mars in a multi-rock environment, which will facilitate scientific analysis after landing.
During the landing, an internal computer will take several photos of the surface of Mars, looking for craters, rocks and other structures to compare with previous available photos of the planet. Once the computer is able to confirm 15 locations, it will switch to higher resolution photos that will improve the landing position, with a margin of error of 40 meters. Curiosity's margin of error, for comparison, was 3km.
Perseverance lands on Mars: where to watch 5c3u1c
Perseverance lands on Mars “live”, with an 11-minute delay in broadcasting what is happening on Mars. Full landing, touching down on Marciano soil, is scheduled for 17:55 pm Brasília time. It can be watched below, on NASA's YouTube channel:
Also enjoy and check out other NASA news here at Showmetech, like the t launch with Space-X from Crew 1.
Source: NASA
