The autonomous landing of Persistence (Preservation) is supposed to be the most precise landing of a spacecraft on Mars to date
Tonight, 22:55 Israel time, a capsule is expected to land in the Jezero Crater on Mars, with NASA's new Preservation Vehicle inside it (Persistence). Update 23:00 The sensitive landing was successfully carried out.
Regular updates - the persistence rover has sent initial images from the landing site
"Persistence is NASA's most ambitious mission to date, and it focuses on the scientific question of whether life ever existed on Mars," said Thomas Zorobuchen, associate director of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "To answer this question, the lander team will dig into Jizero Crater - the most densely packed landing site ever on the Martian surface."
Jizero is a basin where scientists believe an ancient river flowed into the lake and left a fan-shaped sediment known as a delta. Scientists think that the environment here has probably preserved signs of life that existed billions of years ago - but Jezero also has steep cliffs, sand dunes and rock fields.
Landing on Mars is difficult - only about 50% of all previous landing attempts were successful - and these geological features make the current operation increasingly difficult. The persistence team has learned from previous successful and failed landings and uses new technologies that allow the spacecraft to adjust to its landing site more precisely and avoid hazards autonomously.
"The persistence team is putting the final touches on the complex choreography required to land in Gizero Crater," said Jennifer Trusper, the mission's deputy project manager at JPL. "For a decade we have been preparing to land the wheels of this rover on Mars and start working."
It is important to note that the rover can safely land on Mars without communication with Earth: Persistence has pre-programmed landing instructions and significant autonomy.
As soon as it lands one of the first activities of the "Persistence" vehicle will be to take pictures of its new home and transmit the pictures back to Earth. Over the next few days, engineers will also check the rover's health and deploy its remote sensing mast (also known as its "head") so it can take more pictures. The persistence team will then take more than a month to thoroughly test the rover and load new flight software to prepare for the search for ancient life on Mars. At that time, the Ingenuity Mars helicopter crew will take care whose small but mighty robot Will be ready for the first attempt at controlled and powered aerodynamic flight on another planet.
"The Ingenuity team will sit with the persistence team during the landing," said Mimi Ong, the helicopter glider project manager at JPL. "We already want the rover and helicopter to be safe on the surface of Mars and ready for action."
For information on the NASA website
More of the topic in Hayadan:
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The cost of medicine is sky high because it was ruled for many years by a party that sees everything as an expense and not an investment. Unfortunately, this patient also came to us. In any case, there is no connection between the budgets, and transferring all of NASA's budget to health won't help either, because those who decide are greedy private entities.
how much did it cost?
In the US millions are hungry for bread. The cost of medicine is sky high. And these are prestigious games for who has the bigger one.
Really exciting