NASA’s Mars 2020 rover is on its way to a landing that will begin a serious effort to return samples from the planet to Earth. On Monday, NASA gave its latest Mars rover Perseverance the first official confirmation that it will be launched to search for signs of ancient microbial life. The mission is scheduled to arrive on the surface of Mars on February 18, 2021, and search Jezero crater for signs of ancient life.
Here’s everything you need to know about the Perseverance rover, where it will land, what it will do on Mars and what we’ve learned about its mission so far. On its way to the surface of the planet, it will be accompanied by other Mars robots and return samples to Earth.
During its time on Mars, the Perseverance rover will search for evidence of ancient life on the Red Planet. The rover will conduct numerous scientific missions during its two-year mission, including the search for signs of life on Mars. Some of the scientific equipment that will be aboard NASA’s Persistance rover, which is scheduled to land on Mars in February 2021. In conjunction with its “Search for signs of life on Mars” mission, the rover’s primary mission will be to search the surface of Mars for clues to the origins of human life and the history of our own planet.
The lander will take Perseverance to a target landing zone in what is known as Jezero Crater. The Perseverance rover will target a crater that scientists believe was filled with ancient river deltas and lakes, and it will target a lake the size of Lake Tahoe that they believe filled the crater with an ancient river delta and a lake.
The Perseverance rover aims to get close to Mars and head straight into the planet’s rotten atmosphere. The rover will collect samples from the surface of Mars to collect enough samples for the Mars launch in 2026 to return to Earth.
If all goes well, the rover, formerly known as Mars 2020, will touch down on the surface of Mars in mid-July. Provided the Perseverance mission is successful and funding and engineering plans remain on track, NASA and ESA will launch the mission in 2026, a year after the European-built Mars rover collects samples from the Mars 2020 mission. NASA launched Curiosity in 2011 along with other parts and flight systems before bringing the rover to the surface of Mars in August 2012.
After the double success of the Viking lander, NASA’s next mission to the surface of Mars was the Mars Pathfinder, which deployed its first rover, called Sojourner, in 1997. After Viking’s successful landing, it was the first Mars rover to land on the surface of Mars, and its second mission, a rover called “sojourner,” launched in 1997.
The rover contains tools that try to extract oxygen from the Martian atmosphere, and is the first use of the airbag-padded landing method used by NASA’s Mars Pathfinder mission in 1997. This method allows very large and heavy robots to land on Mars and prepare for human exploration of Mars. The rover is the result of an airbag – the padding method used since 1997 was the second successful landing of a Mars rover in history after the successful landing of Viking in 1996.
Mars 2020 will use the same landing method as Mars Pathfinder, which the rover safely reached in August 2012, as well as the airbag cushion method.
NASA will attempt to land the Martian mass on the surface of Jezero Crater, where the space agency will collect data on the composition of the planet’s surface and atmosphere. After NASA’s Curiosity rover touched down on Mars in August 2012, the mission’s scientific measurements will begin. The Perseverance rover will launch when Earth and Mars are in a position that makes it easier to land on Mars. There is not much time to think as the mission heads toward the surface of Mars, which is scheduled to land on Mars in 2020, some 3,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) from Mars.
The Perseverance rover will be on the surface of Mars for more than three years, according to NASA. The mission is expected to see hundreds of critical events on Mars in the rover’s first three months.