Landing on Mars is hard. So you’ll want to watch tomorrow when Perseverance (formerly called Mars 2020) hopefully becomes the first artificial object to land on the red planet since the Insight Mars lander in 2018. It’ll be the first rover since Curiosity touched down in 2012. Due to land in the Jezero Crater, just north of Mars’ equator, Perseverance carries a slew of science instruments to collect soil samples and search for signs of ancient life. It’s equipped with advanced audiovisual technology to let us see and hear – for the first time ever – what it’s like to touch down on another world. It’ll be exciting! NASA TV’s live coverage of the event will begin tomorrow, February 18, at 2:15 p.m. EST (19:15 UTC); the landing will take place at approximately 3:55 p.m. EST (20:55 UTC).
Where to watch: NASA TV, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitch, Daily Motion, and THETA.TV.
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Innovative cameras and microphones on Perseverance will capture much of its pivotal entry, descent, and landing process. This process, sometimes referred to by space engineers as seven minutes of terror, is considered by many to be the most critical and dangerous part of the mission.
According to NASA, engineers expect to receive notice of key milestones for landing at the estimated times below. Because of the distance the signals have to travel from Mars to Earth, these events actually take place on Mars 11 minutes, 22 seconds earlier than what’s noted below. Also, a variety of factors can affect the precise timing of these milestones listed above, including properties of the Martian atmosphere that are hard to predict until the spacecraft actually flies through it.
– Cruise stage separation: The part of the spacecraft that has been flying Perseverance – with NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter attached to its belly – through space for the last 6 1/2 months will separate from the entry capsule at about 3:38 p.m. EST (12:38 p.m. PST, 20:38 UTC).
– Atmospheric entry: The spacecraft is expected to hit the top of the Martian atmosphere traveling at about 12,100 mph (19,500 kph) at 3:48 p.m. EST (12:48 p.m. PST, 20:48 UTC).
– Peak heating: Friction from the atmosphere will heat up the bottom of the spacecraft to temperatures as high as about 2,370 degrees Fahrenheit (about 1,300 degrees Celsius) at 3:49 p.m. EST (12:49 p.m. PST, 20:49 UTC).
– Parachute deployment: The spacecraft will deploy its parachute at supersonic speed at around 3:52 p.m. EST (12:52 p.m. PST, 20:52 UTC). The exact deployment time is based on the new Range Trigger technology, which improves the precision of the spacecraft’s ability to hit a landing target.
– Heat shield separation: The protective bottom of the entry capsule will detach about 20 seconds after the parachute deployment. This allows the rover to use a radar to determine how far it is from the ground and employ its Terrain-Relative Navigation technology to find a safe landing site.
– Back shell separation: The back half of the entry capsule that is fastened to the parachute will separate from the rover and its “jetpack” (known as the descent stage) at 3:54 p.m. EST (12:54 p.m. PST, 20:54 UTC). The jetpack will use retrorockets to slow down and fly to the landing site.
– Touchdown: The spacecraft’s descent stage, using the sky crane maneuver, will lower the rover down to the surface on nylon tethers. The rover is expected to touch down on the surface of Mars at human walking speed (about 1.7 mph, or 2.7 kph) at around 3:55 p.m. EST (12:55 p.m. PST, 20:55 UTC).
The aeroshell containing NASA’s Perseverance rover guides itself towards the Martian surface as it descends through the atmosphere in this illustration. Hundreds of critical events must execute perfectly and exactly on time for the rover to land on Mars safely. Image via NASA/ JPL-Caltech.
The rover will hit the Martian atmosphere traveling at almost 12,000 miles per hour (19,000 kmh), streaking across the sky as its protective heat shield helps to slow it down. Then, at an altitude of about 1 mile (1.5 km), the descent module will fire its engines, while a new terrain relative navigation system will kick in to identify a safe landing spot. Essentially, it will scan and analyze the terrain below, then match it up with maps in its database and prepare for touchdown.
A 70-foot (21 m) diameter parachute will deploy to slow the craft further, bringing its descent to a crawl, before the sky crane begins its task of lowering the rover the rest of the way to the ground. The sky crane is the same hovering-landing system used by Curiosity, and is a completely autonomous system designed to give rovers a soft, gentle landing (hopefully).
Design-wise, the rover is very similar to the Curiosity rover, currently in Gale Crater, but has some different science instruments. While Curiosity focuses on finding evidence of past habitability, which it has done, Perseverance is looking for direct evidence of life itself. This will be the first mission since the Viking 1 and 2 landers in the late 1970s/early 1980s to do so.
Perseverance’s flashy new cameras will capture much of this entire process. A camera mounted on the back shell of the spacecraft is pointed upward. That will record a view of the parachutes deploying as it slows to land. Then, beneath it is a downward-pointing camera on the descent stage, which will film its first touch-contact with the ground on Mars. This suite of technology will provide us with the most detailed video and photo records of landing on a neighboring world yet. Lori Glaze, who heads the Planetary Science Division of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, told reporters:
We’re going to be able to watch ourselves land for the first time on another planet.
There won’t, however, be a livestream of the footage, as we’re accustomed to with International Space Station events and rocket launches from Earth. The reason for this is due to a lag in data relay from Mars to Earth, which is slower than even old dial-up connections. But we may get a glimpse of Perseverance on the ground using the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which can share at least low-resolution images with us shortly after landing. Moreover, we will also have live feeds from mission control at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. Footage from the Curiosity landing has left us with some iconic images (enter Bobak Ferdowsi). Of course, coronavirus protocols will still be in effect at mission control, but it’s unlikely that even a pandemic will dampen the celebration. Perseverance deputy project manager Matt Wallace said:
I don’t think that Covid is going to be able to stop us from jumping up and down and fist bumping. You’re going to see a lot of happy people no matter what, once we get this thing on the surface safely.
Researchers in NASA-JPL’s main mission control, celebrating Curiosity’s 2012 landing. Image via NASA/ Daily Mail.
To date, there’ve been only eight successful Mars landings: Viking 1 and Viking 2 (both 1976), Pathfinder (1997), Spirit and Opportunity (both 2004), Phoenix (2008), Curiosity (2012) and InSight (2018).
The Soviet Union is the only other country to land a spacecraft on Mars successfully. That was in 1971 and 1973.
On the other hand, once they get there, Mars missions may last for years, and robot rovers from Earth have spent years rolling around Mars. With the Perseverance mission, for the first time ever, NASA will try something new; it’ll release a small helicopter into the thin Martian air. The helicopter is called Ingenuity. It’ll attempt to scout around the small planet, trying to target locations of interest for future Mars missions.
NASA chose Jezero Crater as the landing site for the Perseverance rover with good reason. Scientists believe the area was once flooded and home to an ancient water river delta more than 3.5 billion years ago. River channels spilled over the crater wall and created a lake, carrying clay minerals from its surroundings. Microbial life could have lived in the crater during one or more of these wet periods, and if so, signs of their remains might be found in lakebed or shoreline sediments. Scientists will study how the region formed and evolved, seek signs of past life, and collect samples of Mars rock and soil that might preserve these signs. The process of landing site selection involved mission team members and scientists from around the world, who carefully examined more than 60 candidate locations. But after the exhaustive five-year study of potential sites, each with its own unique characteristics and appeal, Jezero rose to the top.
In preparation for Perseverance’s landing, NASA is offering landing resources, ways to participate, social opportunities, and more. Download posters, stickers, fact sheets, mission patches, and more. Register for a virtual landing event, where you can connect online with other space enthusiasts and ask NASA experts your most burning questions. Get lessons and activities for students, or even stamps for virtual passports, all available via their website here.
NASA will use a “sky crane” to gently lower Perseverance to the surface of Mars. Artist’s concept via NASA.
Bottom line: Due to land in the Jezero Crater tomorrow, NASA’s Perseverance rover will carry science instruments to collect soil samples and look for signs of ancient life. It will also use audiovisual technology to let us see and hear what it’s like to touch down on another world for the first time ever. How to watch live coverage of the Perseverance landing.
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