NASA’s next-generation Mars Perseverance rover took off Thursday from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on an Atlas 5 rocket as a component of a $2.4 billion project to search for life lines beyond Earth’s planetary neighbor.
The next-generation robot rover, a six-wheeled car-length vehicle with seven clinical tools, is also expected to deploy a mini helicopter to Mars and check the devices for long-term human missions to the fourth planet in the sun. Its arrival on Mars is scheduled for February 18 at the height of an ancient river delta.
It rose to the sky from Cape Canaveral Air Force Base in Florida at 07.50 EDT (11.50 GMT) in clear, sunny and warm situations, carried by an Atlas five rocket from the Boeing-Lockheed United Launch Alliance. The launch came after the installation of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, where the project engineers were located, shaken by an earthquake.
“The spacecraft is healthy and on its way to Mars,” NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine wrote on Twitter.
The JPL project controllers established their first communication signal with the spacecraft about 90 minutes after takeoff, prompting applause and cheers in the California control room.
This marked NASA’s ninth voyage to the Martian surface.
“Actually, it’s kind of a key to a lot of new studies that we’re doing that focus on the subject … is there life there?” said the head of the area agency’s science department, Thomas Zurbuchen, in a live NASA broadcast after launch.
“Our release procedure is complete. The vehicle is on its way to Mars.” Adam Stelzner, @NASAPersevere’s lead engineer, analyzes the next seven months before landing on the Red Planet. #CountdownToMars pic.twitter.com/V9KB1vF0kz
The director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Mike Watkins, joked about the California earthquake: “The Earth is simply excited to go to Mars. It’s a very minor event. Everything’s fine and we’re on our way to Mars.”
Perseverance is due to the landing at the foot of a 250-meter (820-foot) deep crater called Jezero, from an ancient lake and water formula 3.5 billion years ago that scientists suspect can only provide evidence of microbial life beyond the prospective.
Scientists have long wondered whether Mars, once a much more hospitable position than it is today, has been the home of life. Water is a key element in life, and billions of years ago, Mars had many on the surface before the planet became a desolate and hard outpost.
It is Earth’s third launch to Mars this month, after probes sent through the United Arab Emirates and China.
U.S. Vice President Mike Pence wrote on Twitter: “Today is a day for American leadership in space!”
Florida is lately one of the hot spots in the United States for the coronavirus pandemic.
HELICOPTER ENGINEERING
On board Perseverance is a four-pound (1.8 kg) autonomous helicopter called Ingenuity due to a control flight on Mars. The thin Martian environment, 99% less dense than Earth’s, poses a challenge to ingenuity, which was designed to be light, with larger rotor blades and spinning faster than it would be necessary for a helicopter of its mass on Earth.
Since the landing of NASA’s first Sojourner rover on Mars in 1997, the firm has sent two more, Spirit and Opportunity, which have explored the geology of the vast Martian plains and detected symptoms of formations beyond the water. NASA has effectively shipped 3 landing blocks: Pathfinder, Phoenix, InSight.
The United States plans to send astronauts to Mars in the 2030s as a component of a program that plans to use a return to the moon as a test platform for human missions before embarking on the most ambitious manned adventure to Mars.
Perseverance will conduct an experiment to turn elements of the carbon dioxide-rich environment into a long-range rocket propellant introduced from the Martian surface, or to produce breathable oxygen for long-haul astronauts. The rover will also collect and store samples of rocks and soils for long-term return to Earth.
(Reporting through Joey Roulette in Washington; edited through Will Dunham)
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