NASA’s Perseverance rover is halfway to Mars



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Sometimes halves can be a good thing, especially on such a long journey. The agency’s new rover has only 146 million miles to reach its destination.

NASA‘S Mars The Perseverance Rover 2020 mission has covered many air miles since it was launched into the sky on July 30 – 235.4 million kilometers (146.3 million miles) to be exact. It turns out that this is exactly the same distance it must travel before the spaceship reaches the atmosphere of the Red Planet as a freight train traveling at 19,000 km / h on February 18, 2021.

“Today at 1:40 pm Pacific time, our spaceship will have as many miles in its metaphorical rearview mirror as it has in its metaphorical windshield,” said Julie Kangas, a navigator who worked on the Perseverance rover mission at the Jet Propulsion. NASA’s laboratory in the United States work in Southern California. “I don’t think there will be a cake, especially as most of us work from home, but it’s still a nice finish. Next stop, Jezero Crater. ”

The gravitational influence of the sun plays an important role in shaping not only the trajectories of the spacecraft to Mars (as well as to all other locations in the solar system), but also the relative motion of the two planets. The path from Perseverance to the Red Planet follows a curved trajectory rather than a straight arrow path.

NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover reached its half point – 146.3 million miles (235.4 million kilometers) – on its journey to Jezero Crater on October 27, 2020 at 1:40 pm (4:40 pm CET) . Photo credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech

“Even though we’re halfway to Mars, the rover is not halfway between the two worlds,” Kangas explained. “At a straight distance, the earth is 26.6 million miles [42.7 million kilometers] behind Perseverance and Mars there are 17.9 million miles [28.8 million kilometers] in front of.”

At the current distance, it takes 2 minutes and 22 seconds for a transmission from mission controllers to JPL via the Deep Space Network to the spaceship. Upon landing, Perseverance will have traveled 472.8 million kilometers. Mars will be approximately 209 million kilometers from Earth. At this point, a transmission would take approximately 11.5 minutes to reach the spaceship.

NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover has traveled 146.3 million (235.4 million kilometers) of space miles, exactly half of what it will cover before reaching the Red Planet. Check out the full interactive experience of Eyes on the Solar System.

The work continues on the street

The mission team continues to study large and small spacecraft systems during interplanetary cruise. Perseverance’s RIMFAX and MOXIE instruments were tested on October 15th and found to be in good condition. MEDA cast its vote on 19 October. On October 16 there was even a rumor to check the condition of the X-ray tube in the PIXL instrument, which went as planned.

“If it is part of our spacecraft and has electricity flowing through it, we want to confirm that it will still function properly after launch,” said Keith Comeaux, assistant chief engineer for the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover mission. “Among these logs, in addition to charging the Mars rover and helicopter batteries, loading files and sequences for surface operations, and planning and executing trajectory correction maneuvers, our shield is full when we land.”

This depiction of the Mars 2020 spacecraft in interplanetary space was created using images from NASA’s Eyes on the Solar System. The image comes from the center of the mission between Earth and Mars. Photo credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech

Learn more about the mission

A key focus of the Perseverance mission to Mars is astrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will feature the planet’s geology and past climate, pave the way for human exploration of the red planet, and be the first mission to collect and store Martian and regolith rocks (broken rocks and dust).

Subsequent missions, currently under review by NASA in collaboration with the European Space Agency (ESA), would send spacecraft to Mars to collect these cached samples from the surface and return them to Earth for in-depth analysis.

The Mars 2020 mission is part of a larger program that includes missions to the moon in preparation for human exploration of the red planet. NASA is expected to return astronauts to the moon by 2024 and establish a sustained human presence on the moon and around 2028 through NASA’s Artemis lunar exploration plans.

JPL, operated for NASA by Caltech of Pasadena, California, has built and operates the operations of the Perseverance and Curiosity rovers.

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