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A view of Jezero crater, as seen by the Creativity helicopter, Image: NASA JPL
With all of his helicopter babysitting assignments completed, persistence can finally launch into the serious work of sifting through the landscapes of Mars for signs of past life.
“We’re placing the rover’s start-up phase as well as the landing site in our rearview mirror and hitting the road,” Jennifer Trosper, Perseverance Project Manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory said in a statement.
In fact, perseverance was no longer needed during the tests of the highly successful Creativity helicopter, which now flies without the rover’s eye. Freed from this task, the rover can now embark on its first scientific expedition.
The next 14 weeks will see a perseverance exploration of 1.5 square miles [4-square-kilometer] An area within Jezero crater, where it is working to achieve a large number of scientific goals. These goals include an enhanced understanding of the area’s geology, assessment of its past potential to harbor life, and of course the ultimate prize: finding signs of ancient microbial life.
To this end, Perseverance will identify and collect promising samples of rocks and sediments, some of which will be placed inside packages for a future Mars mission to retrieve and deliver them to Earth for analysis. The rover will also take measurements and conduct technical tests in anticipation of future human and robotic missions to the Red Planet.
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The first step is for the sporty-sized vehicle to reach a scenic view, where you’ll gaze at the ancient geological features of the crater. Percy’s auto-navigation and sampling capabilities will be fully demonstrated online during this process.
From there, the rover will begin its investigations in two specific areas, which are believed to host deep and ancient layers of exposed bedrock. The first area was called Crater Floor Fractured Rough, which, as its name suggests, is riddled with potholes. The second area is called Séítah, which means “middle of the sand” in Navajo. According to NASA, Sittah has “its fair share of Martian bedrock but is also home to hills, layered rocks, and sand dunes.”
An annotated map showing the planned route of Percy. Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona
The rover’s path has already been determined, and the map above shows where the Perseverance will wander through 100 Mars days, or Mars days. Mission planners have a “planned path, complete with optional shutdowns, designated areas of interest, and potential obstacles on our way,” Kevin Hand, an astrobiologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and co-author of the project, explained in the statement.
The Séítah Exploration Unit is expected to be challenging, as it features an array of sand dunes. To avoid problems, the rover will travel across the border between this area and Crater Floor Fractured Rough. When an area of interest within Séítah is identified, Percy will make a beeline to that spot, perform his science duties, and then return to a safe place. The team plans to identify at least four sites within these two regions that are best able to reveal the crater’s early environment and geological history. From these four points the rover will be sampled.
“Starting at the fractured crater of the Rough and Séítah geological units allows us to begin our exploration of Jezero initially,” Hand said. This area was less than 100 meters away [328 feet] of water 3.8 billion years ago. We don’t know what stories the rocks and stratigraphic outcrops will tell us, but we’re excited to get started. “
Several months from now, once this phase of the mission is complete, the rover will return to the Octavia E. Butler landing site. By this point, it should have traveled between 1.6 and 3.1 miles (2.5 and 5 kilometers), while eight of the 43 sample tubes should be filled with Martian dirt and rock.
This first science expedition looks great, but the next one promises to be even better. Perseverance will travel north and then west to the Jezero Delta, which once met an ancient river and lake. Deltas can be rich in carbonates, that is, minerals that are able to preserve fossilized signs of life. If microbial life existed on Mars – and that’s still a big if – this delta would be an ideal place to live.
Perseverance may be embarking on its first official science expedition, but to be fair, the rover has been fantasizing since the moment it landed in February. In addition to recording sounds on Mars, it actually produced trace amounts of oxygen from the carbon dioxide-rich Martian atmosphere.
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