On Thursday February 18, 2021, the Perseverance team at NASA made history by sending yet another rover on Mars, this time with a helicopter on board.
This rover gives scientists and viewers around the world high definition pictures of the Martian atmosphere and the actual ground and conditions on Mars, in color. The team is also doing a great job of keeping the public updated on the rover and its whereabouts through the team’s Twitter account (@NASApersevere).
According to NASA, the Perseverance team is made up of diverse group scientists and engineers from all different backgrounds with help from many other participating international countries, organizations, and private donors; with John B. McNamee as the overall project manager.
What is the purpose of this rover? Well, for a while now scientists have been trying to figure out whether or not there is or was previous life on Mars. Although that’s a main focus, the rover is also studying the atmosphere’s conditions to see if it’s habitable or not.
This rover can take images and videos with a 360 degree panoramic view camera, as well as drill the into the ground and rock.
A cool fact about the rover is it also took over 10 million people’s names to Mars with it. NASA held a campaign called “Send Your Name to Mars,” where individuals would come up with names for the rover along with and essay explaining the name they chose. All 10,932,295 names and 155 finalist essays were engraved into three tiny silicon chips and welded to the top of the rover.
The Perseverance rover was a huge and lengthy project costing about 2.7 billion dollars. Building the rover itself took about a year and a half to construct at Jet Propulsion Laboratory to make it to their launching window on time. They launched the Perseverance rover on July 30, 2020 atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket that departed from Florida’s Space Coast. It took the Perseverance rover seven months, traveling at 24,600 mph, to make it to the Jericho crater on Mars when it landed on February 18, 2021.
This enormous amount of time, effort, and money will not go to waste though, as NASA is planning on using the rover to explore Mars for the next three years! The rover will test all types of Martian rocks and the planet’s crust to determine whether there was ever water on Mars, ever life on Mars (fossils), how the Martian atmosphere has affected the geographic features, and so much more.
Mars may even possibly be the next human habited planet! Currently Elon Musk’s SpaceX program’s goal is to land people on Mars by 2030.
Follow the Perseverance team on Twitter to get daily updates and footage of the rover @NASApersevere.
MOOSE PRINTS 