27.09.2023
NASA's Perseverance rover sets record for longest Mars drive on autopilot
The rover's autopilot even guided it through boulders not seen by orbiting spacecraft.
Part of the path NASA's Perseverance Mars rover took to cross the boulder field dubbed "Snowdrift Peak."(Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)
NASA's Perseverance rover, along with its automatic navigation system, just set a record on Mars by maneuvering right through a particularly hazardous patch of Martian land. In turn, this impressive trip saved scientists weeks of precious time during which they can now do more science.
Although the mission team usually charts out the Mars rover's course manually, the automatic navigation system named AutoNav proved remarkable in this case as it safely guided the Perseverance rover around rocks hidden from orbiter images typically used for planning, scientists say.
"It was much denser than anything Perseverance has encountered before — just absolutely littered with these big rocks," Del Sesto, the deputy rover planner lead for Perseverance at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, said in a statement published Thursday (Sept. 21). "We didn't want to go around it because it would have taken us weeks. More time driving means less time for science, so we just dove right in."
In late June, Perseverance entered the boulder field named "Snowdrift Peak" from the east. It first paused to inspect two rocks, then, guided by AutoNav, trudged right through the field. By the time the rover exited Snowdrift Peak in late July, it had logged 759 meters (0.8 kilometers), according to the statement.
The rover's covered distance is slightly longer than the 520 meters (0.5 kilometers) it would have covered if it were to travel in a straight line, which scientists attribute to AutoNav's help in guiding Perseverance around rocks not visible to the mission team.
NASA's robotic explorers have remained protected on unfamiliar terrains by automatic navigators since 1997 when Sojourner, the space agency's first Marsrover, dodged dangerous rocks using a silicon-based navigator. But it had such a small memory that the rover needed to stop every 5.1 inches (13 centimeters) to reorient to its surroundings. With better software, those distances increased with every successor that visited Mars.
Now, Perseverance doesn't need to stop to decide where to go next at all, thanks to powerful cameras and a dedicated computer for image processing, which together help AutoNav plan the route in real-time.
"Our rover is the perfect example of the old adage 'two brains are better than one,'" Vandi Verma, the mission's chief engineer for robotic operations at JPL, said in the statement. "Perseverance is the first rover that has two computer brains working together, allowing it to make decisions on the fly."
Those programmed brains have also helped Perseverance set previous records on Mars for off-roading 699.9 meters (0.6 kilometers) in the Jezero Crater — the longest drive without human review, scientists say.
Earlier this month, Perseverance kickstarted its fourth science campaign by exploring the inner regions of Jezero Crater's western rim, which seems to be rich in carbonates — a tantalizing clue that could shed more light on any ancient microbial life that might have existed on Mars. This area is also rich in broken rocks, high slopes and Martian dunes, according to data gathered from orbiting spacecraft.
"This new terrain is definitely going to throw a few curveballs at us and AutoNav," said Mark Maimone, deputy team chief for robotic operations on Perseverance. "But that is where the science is.
"We're ready."
Quelle: SC
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Update: 1.10.2023
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NASA’s Perseverance Captures Dust-Filled Martian Whirlwind
NASA’s Perseverance rover captured this Martian dust devil moving east to west at a clip of about 12 mph (19 kph) along “Thorofare Ridge” on Aug. 30. The video, which was sped up 20 times, is composed of 21 frames taken four seconds apart. It was enhanced in order to show maximal detail. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
The six-wheeled geologist spotted the twister as part of an atmospheric exploration of Jezero Crater.
The lower portion of a Martian dust devil was captured moving along the western rim of Mars’ Jezero Crater by NASA’s Perseverance rover on Aug. 30, 2023, the 899th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. The video, which was sped up 20 times, is composed of 21 frames taken four seconds apart by one of the rover’s Navcams.
Much weaker and generally smaller than Earth’s tornadoes, dust devils are one of the mechanisms that move and redistribute dust around Mars. Scientists study them to better understand the Martian atmosphere and improve their weather models.
Using data from the imagery, mission scientists determined that this particular dust devil was about 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) away, at a location nicknamed “Thorofare Ridge,” and moving east to west at about 12 mph (19 kph). They calculated its width to be about 200 feet (60 meters). And while only the bottom 387 feet (118 meters) of the swirling vortex are visible in the camera frame, the scientists could also estimate its full height.
“We don’t see the top of the dust devil, but the shadow it throws gives us a good indication of its height,” said Mark Lemmon, a planetary scientist at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado, and a member of the Perseverance science team. “Most are vertical columns. If this dust devil were configured that way, its shadow would indicate it is about 1.2 miles (2 kilometers) in height.”
Dust devils, which occur on Earth as well, form when rising cells of warm air mix with descending columns of cooler air. The Martian versions can grow to be much larger than those found on Earth. And while they are most prominent during the spring and summer months (Mars’ northern hemisphere, where Perseverance is located, is currently in summer), scientists can’t predict when they’ll appear at a specific location. So Perseverance and its fellow NASA Mars rover Curiosity routinely monitor in all directions for them, taking images in black-and-white to reduce the amount of data sent to Earth.
Quelle: NASA
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Update: 26.10.2023
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NASA's Ingenuity helicopter aces longest Mars flight in 18 months
The little chopper covered 1,901 feet (579 meters) of ground on the Oct. 19 hop.
NASA's Ingenuity helicopter stretched its legs a bit on the Red Planet last week.
The 4-pound (1.8 kilograms) Ingenuity conducted its 63rd Mars flight on Thursday (Oct. 19), covering 1,901 feet (579 meters) of ground in the process.
That was "its longest distance since Flight 25," NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, which manages Ingenuity's mission, said via X (formerly Twitter) on Monday (Oct. 23).
Ingenuity flew for 2,310 feet (704 m) on Flight 25, which occurred on April 8, 2022. That's the rotorcraft's single-flight distance record, followed by 2,051 feet (625 m) on Flight 9 in July 2021. Flight 63 is in third place.
This latest sortie lasted 143 seconds, according to the mission's flight log. Ingenuity got a maximum of 39 feet (12 m) above the ground and reached a top speed of about 14.1 mph (22.7 kph).
Those numbers aren't records, either; the superlatives in those categories are 169.5 seconds, 66 feet (20 m) in altitude and 22.4 mph (36 kph), according to the flight log.
Ingenuity landed inside Mars' 28-mile-wide (45 kilometers) Jezero Crater in February 2021 with NASA's Perseverance rover.
The helicopter's original task was to demonstrate that powered flight is possible on Mars, despite the planet's thin atmosphere. Ingenuity did so over the course of five flights in the spring of 2021. NASA then granted a mission extension, during which the chopper is serving as a scout for the life-hunting, sample-collecting Perseverance.
Quelle: SC
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If the Perseverance rover found evidence of life on Mars, would we recognize it?
NASA's Perseverance rover is scurrying around on the Red Planet, wheeling and dealing around Jezero Crater and inspecting the site of this former lake up close.
NASA's Perseverance rover is scurrying around on the Red Planet, wheeling and dealing around Jezero Crater and inspecting the site of this former lake up close.
The rover recently came across some eye-catching circular rock structures, and they are attention-grabbers for good reason. That's because they resemble ones formed by microbial communities in some lakes on Earth.
But the finding underscores, perhaps, how Mother Nature on the Red Planet can make it difficult to conclude what might or might not constitute evidence for life on that world.
Or, on the other hand, could we be missing something?
Several top Mars specialists offer their thoughts and advice on what's the real gist from Jezero.
"I was genuinely excited when I first saw these circular features because of what I imagined microbialite structures might look like after a lake dries up and erosion takes over," said Steve Ruff, an Arizona State University planetary geologist with a focus on the mineralogy of Mars at the School of Earth and Space Exploration.
Microbialites are rock-like underwater structures that take on the look of reefs but consist mainly of millions of microbes.
"But it also seemed too good to be true and I quickly recognized details that are inconsistent with a biologic origin," Ruff told Space.com.
Ruff said that, because it's Mars, with no confirmed proof of life, you've got to always first assume that biology is not involved and look for geologic explanations.
"Only when there's no compelling geologic explanation should biology be seriously considered. Even then, there needs to be extraordinary evidence, as Carl Sagan said, to claim evidence for life," Ruff advised.
As an independent Mars sleuth, Ruff added that he is hopeful that Perseverance rover science members can actually address what they concluded about these features.
Alexis Rodriguez, a senior scientist of the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona said that anything that could point to life from such a distant past deserves serious attention.
"My understanding is that while the circular features are considered to be possible evidence of stromatolite-like mounds, the evidence is not unequivocal and it seems that some alternative explanations have not been ruled out," Rodriguez said. "However, if they are indeed biogenic features there are numerous important implications of interest to the general public."
For example, Rodriguez said that the persistence of stromatolites in a given geological setting suggests a stable, long-term presence of liquid water, as they require time for formation.
"Hence, their existence implies that the water in those locales did not freeze for extended periods, allowing for the continual biological activity necessary for stromatolite growth," Rodriguez added. "This implication carries tremendous weight on our understanding of Mars' early climate, touching on the debate on whether it was mostly much colder than that of early Earth or a much closer match."
Meeting the criteria
It is true that nature is more creative than we could imagine, said Catherine Gillen of Durham University in the U.K., working on the Exploring Uncertainty and Risk in Contemporary Astrobiology (EURiCA) project that seeks to define and establish the definitions of what constitutes astrobiology, the study of the origins of life throughout the universe.
"There does indeed seem to exist a biological explanation for these circular rock structures due to their similarity with microbial structures on Earth," Gillen said.
"However, the researchers were right not to just leave it there! The resemblance to corestones seems to offer a promising abiotic [not living or composed of living things] explanation that should be preferred over any biological one," said Gillen. "As such, these structures would likely not meet the criteria for biosignature under the proposed definition."
Defining a biosignature
Gillen is the lead author of a recently published paper in the journal "Astrobiology" making a call for a "new definition" of biosignature.
Gillen and colleagues note that the term biosignature has been useful to the community, but its meaning remains unsettled.
Indeed, existing definitions conflict greatly over the balance of evidence needed to establish a biosignature, they report, which leads to mix-ups and puzzlement about what is being claimed when biosignatures are purportedly detected.
In an attempt to resolve this, Gillen and associates suggest the term "biosignature" is used to describe any phenomenon for which biological processes are a known possible explanation and whose potential abiotic causes have been reasonably explored and ruled out.
The thrust of their call is to narrow the gap between the detection of a biosignature and a confirmed discovery of life.
Images are not enough
Underscoring the tough slog up a slippery slope to hopefully rise to a level of evidence needed to make a compelling case for life on Mars is Chris McKay of NASA's Ames Research Center.
A noted Mars specialist, McKay is also an associate editor of the "International Journal of Astrobiology." He recalls receiving a paper about a year ago making the same general claim for Perseverance rover imagery of rocks that look like life.
"Perseverance, unlike the Curiosity Mars rover, has a Raman spectrometer. I asked the author to get the corresponding Raman spectrum and see if there was any organic signal consistent with biological organics. The author tried but there was nothing there," said McKay. "My view is that the images are not enough … way too ambiguous to make a case for something as interesting as life."
Meanwhile, as the Perseverance wheels turn, the robot continues to roll out scientific offerings from Jezero Crater. It is possible that microbial life could have lived there and is preserved in that location.
But sorting out that story is indeed a painstaking and meticulous process … so stay tuned!
Quelle: SC
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Update: 9.11.2023
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NASA's Ingenuity Mars helicopter flies on back-to-back days to prep for 'solar conjunction'
The two flights positioned Ingenuity properly for a coming two-week pause in commands.
NASA's Ingenuity helicopter just made its 65th and 66th Red Planet flights, two short hops that helped prep the chopper for a coming stretch in which it will be cut off from ground control.
Flight 65 occurred on Nov. 2. The 4-pound (1.8 kilograms) Ingenuity stayed aloft that day for 48 seconds, covering 23 feet (7 meters) of Mars ground in the process. Then, the rotorcraft was at it again on Nov. 3 with an even briefer sortie: It lasted 23 seconds and involved a horizontal movement of just 2 feet (0.6 m), according to the mission's flight log.
Nothing went wrong on either flight; they weren't designed to chew up big chunks of Martian terrain.
"These two short flights positioned the #MarsHelicopter for the upcoming Mars solar conjunction, when mission teams will pause on sending commands for about 2 weeks," officials with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, which manages Ingenuity's mission, said today (Nov. 7) in a post on X(formerly known as Twitter).
Earth and the Red Planet sit on opposite sides of the sun during Mars solar conjunction, which happens once every two years or so. Importantly for NASA's Martian explorers, this positioning means our star blocks radio signals zinging between the two planets. Mars mission teams therefore stand down from commanding their robots during this time.
"It's impossible to predict what information might be lost due to interference from charged particles from the sun, and that lost information could potentially endanger the spacecraft," NASA officials wrote in a solar conjunction explainer. "Instead, prior to solar conjunction, engineers send two weeks' worth of instructions and wait."
As that note indicates, Mars solar conjunction lasts about two weeks. This latest occurrence runs from Nov. 11 to Nov. 25 — the stretch of time during which Mars will be within 2 degrees of the sun from Earth's vantage point, NASA officials said. (For perspective: Your clenched fist held at arm's length covers about 10 degrees of sky.)
Ingenuity landed inside Mars' 28-mile-wide (45 kilometers) Jezero Crater in February 2021, along with NASA's life-hunting, sample-collecting Perseverance rover.
The little chopper's primary goal was to show that powered flight is possible on Mars despite the planet's wispy atmosphere, which is just 1% the density of Earth's at sea level.
Ingenuity aced that task over five flights in the spring of 2021. NASA then granted the helicopter an extended mission, on which Ingenuity is serving as a scout for Perseverance. Over its 66 flights to date, Ingenuity has flown a total of 9 miles (14.5 kilometers) and stayed aloft for nearly 119 minutes, according to the mission flight log.
Quelle: SC
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Update: 27.11.2023
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Perseverance's Parking Spot
Perseverance imaged this rock target, Barrabiddy, to investigate its emplacement and textures. This image prompted further analyses by the Science Team and captured the eyes of the public. Acquired on Nov. 3, 2023 (Sol 961).
The Science Team directed Perseverance to Airey Hill, the parking spot chosen for Solar Conjunction. Although there will be a pause on data during conjunction, team members still analyze all the images taken on the drive before Perseverance parked and data delivery was paused.
While all returned images and data are exciting, these post-drive images showed an interesting rock that stood out to the Mastcam-Z (ZCAM) team. Pictured above, the rock Barrabiddy had interesting textures, such as the wind-abraded smooth rock faces, that caught the attention of team members. What adds to the intrigue is this rock seems to be part of an exposed outcrop that is in contact with the underlying bedrock. The initial ZCAM images suggesting a depositional contact inspired focused compositional analyses by the SuperCam instruments.
While these ZCAM images prompted observations on the Science Team, Barrabiddy also captured the eyes of the public. The above image of Barrabiddy was voted as Image of the Week for Week 142, receiving over 280 "likes" on Perseverance's Raw Images page! Most images receive few likes, so the public's interest in Barrabiddy is quite evident through their interaction.
As a scientist and team member involved with communicating Perseverance's science to the public, I always try to be aware of how to engage people and effectively share information about the rover. Seeing the images and data that excite the public is one way we, as scientists, can best engage others and bring everyone into the amazing journey of Perseverance.
While Perseverance is parked for solar conjunction, it is a great time to reflect on the journey so far. If you become restless during conjunction and want to look back at beautiful data from Mars, check out the past raw Images of the Week or the Mastcam-Z team-favorite images. Are you drawn to interesting rocks like Barrabiddy? Check out past blogs about other cool rocks Perseverance has imaged, like the rock shaped like a sombrero, a dragon's egg, or ones with hidden illusions. Happy Solar Conjunction!
Quelle: SD
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Update: 10.12.2023
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NASA's Ingenuity Mars helicopter gearing up for longest flight ever this weekend
The little chopper will cover more than half a mile of Martian ground on Saturday (Dec. 9), if all goes according to plan.
NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter acquired this image using its high-resolution color camera on its 66th Red Planet flight, which occurred on Nov. 3, 2023. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)
NASA's Ingenuity Mars helicopter is poised to set yet another record this weekend.
The 4-pound (1.8 kilograms) Ingenuity, the first robot ever to explore the skies of a world beyond Earth, is scheduled to make its 68th Red Planet flight on Saturday (Dec. 9).
The plan calls for Ingenuity to cover 2,717 feet (828 meters) of Mars ground — more than half a mile — during the sortie, mission team members wrote in a preview today (Dec. 8). That's considerably farther than the helicopter's current distance record of 2,310 feet (704 m), which was set in April 2022, on its 25th flight.
Ingenuity landed on the floor of Mars' Jezero Crater with NASA's Perseverancerover in February 2021, tasked with showing that aerial exploration is possible on Mars despite the planet's thin atmosphere.
The little rotorcraft did just that over the course of five flights during the spring of 2021, then was granted an extended mission that continues to this day. Ingenuity is now serving as a scout for Perseverance, which is hunting for signs of ancient Mars life and collecting samples for future return to Earth.
Saturday's planned flight will target a top speed of 22.4 mph (36 kph), mission team members wrote in the preview. That would tie Ingenuity's velocity record, which was set this past October. The coming hop will last 147 seconds and take the chopper a maximum of 33 feet (10 m) above Mars' red dirt.
Those latter two figures won't set any new marks; Ingenuity has soared as high as 79 feet (24 m) and stayed aloft for 169.5 seconds at a time, according to the mission's flight log.
Over the course of its 67 Mars flights, Ingenuity has racked up a total of 121 minutes of air time and covered about 9.5 miles (15.3 kilometers) of ground.
Quelle: SC
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Update: 14.12.2023
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NASA’s Perseverance Rover Deciphers Ancient History of Martian Lake
This 360-degree mosaic from the “Airey Hill” location inside Jezero Crater was generated using 993 individual images taken by the Perseverance Mars rover’s Mastcam-Z from Nov. 3-6. The rover remained parked at Airey Hill for several weeks during solar conjunction. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS
Now at 1,000 days on Mars, the mission has traversed an ancient river and lake system, collecting valuable samples along the way.
Marking its 1,000th Martian day on the Red Planet, NASA’s Perseverance rover recently completed its exploration of the ancient river delta that holds evidence of a lake that filled Jezero Crater billions of years ago. The six-wheeled scientist has to date collected a total of 23 samples, revealing the geologic history of this region of Mars in the process.
One sample called “Lefroy Bay” contains a large quantity of fine-grained silica, a material known to preserve ancient fossils on Earth. Another, “Otis Peak,” holds a significant amount of phosphate, which is often associated with life as we know it. Both of these samples are also rich in carbonate, which can preserve a record of the environmental conditions from when the rock was formed.
The discoveries were shared Tuesday, Dec. 12, at the American Geophysical Union fall meeting in San Francisco.
This image of Mars’ Jezero Crater is overlaid with mineral data detected from orbit. The green color represents carbonates – minerals that form in watery environments with conditions that might be favorable for preserving signs of ancient life. NASA’s Perseverance is currently exploring the green area above Jezero’s fan (center).
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/JHU-APL
“We picked Jezero Crater as a landing site because orbital imagery showed a delta – clear evidence that a large lake once filled the crater. A lake is a potentially habitable environment, and delta rocks are a great environment for entombing signs of ancient life as fossils in the geologic record,” said Perseverance’s project scientist, Ken Farley of Caltech. “After thorough exploration, we’ve pieced together the crater’s geologic history, charting its lake and river phase from beginning to end.”
Jezero formed from an asteroid impact almost 4 billion years ago. After Perseverance landed in February 2021, the mission team discovered the crater floor is made of igneous rock formed from magma underground or from volcanic activity at the surface. They have since found sandstone and mudstone, signaling the arrival of the first river in the crater hundreds of millions of years later. Above these rocks are salt-rich mudstones, signaling the presence of a shallow lake experiencing evaporation. The team thinks the lake eventually grew as wide as 22 miles (35 kilometers) in diameter and as deep as 100 feet (30 meters).
Later, fast-flowing water carried in boulders from outside Jezero, distributing them atop of the delta and elsewhere in the crater.
“We were able to see a broad outline of these chapters in Jezero’s history in orbital images, but it required getting up close with Perseverance to really understand the timeline in detail,” said Libby Ives, a postdoctoral fellow at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, which manages the mission.
Enticing Samples
The samples Perseverance gathers are about as big as a piece of classroom chalk and are stored in special metal tubes as part of the Mars Sample Return campaign, a joint effort by NASA and ESA (European Space Agency). Bringing the tubes to Earth would enable scientists to study the samples with powerful lab equipment too large to take to Mars.
To decide which samples to collect, Perseverance first uses an abrasion tool to wear away a patch of a prospective rock and then studies the rock’s chemistry using precision science instruments, including the JPL-built Planetary Instrument for X-ray Lithochemistry, or PIXL.
At a target the team calls “Bills Bay,” PIXL spotted carbonates – minerals that form in watery environments with conditions that might be favorable for preserving organic molecules. (Organic molecules form by both geological and biological processes.) These rocks were also abundant with silica, a material that’s excellent at preserving organic molecules, including those related to life.
“On Earth, this fine-grained silica is what you often find in a location that was once sandy,” said JPL’s Morgan Cable, the deputy principal investigator of PIXL. “It’s the kind of environment where, on Earth, the remains of ancient life could be preserved and found later.”
Perseverance’s instruments are capable of detecting both microscopic, fossil-like structures and chemical changes that may have been left by ancient microbes, but they have yet to see evidence for either.
At another target PIXL examined, called “Ouzel Falls,” the instrument detected the presence of iron associated with phosphate. Phosphate is a component of DNA and the cell membranes of all known terrestrial life and is part of a molecule that helps cells carry energy.
After assessing PIXL’s findings on each of these abrasion patches, the team sent up commands for the rover to collect rock cores close by: Lefroy Bay was collected next to Bills Bay, and Otis Peak at Ouzel Falls.
“We have ideal conditions for finding signs of ancient life where we find carbonates and phosphates, which point to a watery, habitable environment, as well as silica, which is great at preservation,” Cable said.
Perseverance’s work is, of course, far from done. The mission’s ongoing fourth science campaign will explore Jezero Crater’s margin, near the canyon entrance where a river once flooded the crater floor. Rich carbonate deposits have been spotted along the margin, which stands out in orbital images like a ring within a bathtub.
More About the Mission
A key objective for Perseverance’s mission on Mars is astrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will characterize 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 cache Martian rock and regolith (broken rock and dust).
Subsequent NASA missions, in cooperation with ESA (European Space Agency), would send spacecraft to Mars to collect these sealed samples from the surface and return them to Earth for in-depth analysis.
The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission is part of NASA’s Moon to Mars exploration approach, which includes Artemis missions to the Moon that will help prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet.
JPL, which is managed for NASA by Caltech in Pasadena, California, built and manages operations of the Perseverance rover.
Quelle: NASA
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Update: 17.12.2023
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Perseverance Mars rover to climb crater rim next spring in bonus mission
'It's quite remarkable actually that there is a route that we can drive up with the rover.'
Portion of a 360-degree mosaic from the "Airey Hill" location inside Jezero Crater, generated using 993 individual images taken by the Perseverance Mars rover’s Mastcam-Z camera from Nov. 3 to Nov. 6, 2023. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS)
Nearly three years ago, NASA's Perseverance rover landed on Mars as part of a decades-long effort to study if the now-barren planet ever hosted life.
Jezero Crater once harbored a big lake and a river delta. The car-sized Perseverance, equipped with sophisticated cameras and science instruments, has so far been spending its days studying its environs and scooping up a variety of intriguing, 3.5-billion-year-old Martian rocks and soil scattered on the crater floor. As planned, the rover has dropped 10 sample-filled tubes on the ground, where they await the arrival of a different robot which will ferry them back to Earth for more robust scrutiny in the 2030s.
On Tuesday (Dec. 12), NASA announced that the $2.7 billion robotic explorer has fulfilled all its assignments while also notching 1,000 Mars days on the Red Planet. (One Mars day, or sol, lasts 24 hours and 37 minutes.) Initial analyses of the rover's collected rocks reveal that some of them contain plenty of carbonate-rich minerals and minuscule silica grains, a combination that likely would have preserved any organic molecules from the time and prevented them from degrading, akin to a "mummy's tomb," Morgan Cable, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California, told reporters during a press briefing on Tuesday.
Some of the rocks also show strong evidence for an intriguing mineral called iron phosphate. Here on Earth, phosphate is found in the DNA of all known life forms and also dissolves easily in liquid water. "We know that phosphorus is incredibly important," said Cable, "and now we have the strongest evidence ever collected that phosphorus was available in a form that life could access if it was there."
"I would say, mission accomplished," said Ken Farley, a geochemist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena who serves as the project scientist for the Perseverance mission. "We've acquired some very, very good samples."
Speaking at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) conference being held this week in San Francisco and online, Farley said the 1,000-sol milestone also marks the beginning of a new bonus mission starting next spring that will take Perseverance up and across the rim of Jezero Crater, and possibly even beyond. Scientists suspect that ancient Martian groundwater in this region interacted with rocks in a way that created an environment completely different from what the rover has explored so far.
"It's quite remarkable actually that there is a route that we can drive up with the rover," said Farley, adding that Perseverance will roll 2.4 miles (4 kilometers) from its current location to reach the start of its egress path. "That will allow us access to rocks that are much, much older."
While the bonus trek next year will aim to fill the 13 sample tubes remaining onboard the rover, the rocks collected so far are already helping scientists stitch together pieces of how Jezero Crater, thought to have been birthed by an asteroid impact about 3.9 billion years ago and later flooded by a long-lived river, evolved to be the parched, boulder-strewn area Perseverance is showing us today.
The drastic transformation occurred across three major phases, Libby Ives, part of the Perseverance team at JPL, explained during Tuesday's briefing. Sometime around 3.7 billion years ago, a large, fast-moving river breached the crater's rim and gushed in, carrying with it — and leaving behind — light-colored, fine-grained sand and mud seen by Perseverance in an area nicknamed the "Bacon Strip," Ives said.
Floodwaters then apparently filled the crater until the lake was 100 feet (30 meters) or so deep, which can be inferred from the gradually changing layers of rock types plastered onto one another, said Ives. The third and final phase witnessed another sudden colossal flood that dumped round, 3.3-foot-wide (1 m) boulders across the crater.
"These are big rocks, probably not something you're picking up by yourself," said Ives.
A mosaic of a location nicknamed "Castell Henllys" in Jezero Crater as seen by the Perseverance rover. The rounded boulders littered here are thought to have been shaped and dumped into the crater by a powerful flood billions of years ago. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS
At some point in Mars' history, the water flooding Jezero Crater — and flowing in other parts of the planet — escaped into space, "never to be seen again," said Farley. "Had that not been the case, this would all be gone."
The surface water's disappearance is thought to have been accelerated by the then-young sun's frequent solar storms, which stripped away Mars' once-thick atmosphere. As its atmosphere got thinner and thinner, the planet lost more and and more of its surface water, eventually becoming the frigid desert we know today. (Mars' atmosphere is currently about 1% as thick as Earth's is at sea level.)
Among countless boulders cluttering the Martian surface today, scientists are particularly interested in fine-grained rock at a spot named Hidden Harbor, whose thin, white sulfate veins are evidence for ancient water activity.
"This is the kind of rock that we would pull apart grain by grain and really study individual grains very, very carefully," said Meenakshi Wadhwa of Arizona State University, who serves as the principal scientist for the Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission, which aims to bring Perseverance's samples to Earth.
"This would be one of the most audacious robotic missions ever conducted," said Wadhwa. "It remains incredibly important for its high strategic and scientific value."
Scientists don't yet have a precise timeline for when Mars' surface was habitable and when it became parched, as that information can be learned only by time-dating Martian rocks using equipment here on Earth. Robust analysis would also reveal if the intriguing minerals that Perseverance has spotted are really evidence for life as we know it and not just byproducts of physical processes.
In Tuesday's briefing, Lori Glaze, director of NASA's Planetary Science Division, emphasized the importance of returning samples collected by Perseverance to Earth. Study of that material in well-equipped labs around the world "is what will provide the ground truth for decades of remote sensing and in-situ data that we have from exploring Mars," Glaze said.
NASA is spearheading the ambitious MSR mission, which aims to launch an orbiter and rocket-toting lander in 2030 but remains under stress due to its cost overruns and unprepared architecture. In response to a report from an independent review board that urged a rethink of certain aspects of the design, Glaze said the mission team is currently evaluating different options to feasibly return those samples to Earth.
As per the current plan, Perseverance would load samples into the NASA lander, which would then launch the material to Mars orbit. Up there, a European orbiter would grab the sample capsule and haul it back toward Earth. But the new bonus trek next year will move the rover outside the crater’s rim and away from its initial stash of samples on the crater floor, so team members are yet to figure out exactly where the future sample retrieval lander should touch down. Glaze said one option may be to perch the lander wherever Perseverance is at that time, or drive the rover back to the crater floor near the dropped samples.
When those samples ultimately reach Earth, they will be preserved "for decades and generations to come so that scientists who haven't even been born yet can address questions we haven't thought of yet, using instrumentation that hasn't been invented," said Glaze.
Quelle: SC
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Update: 5.01.2024
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NASA's Ingenuity Mars helicopter sets new distance record on the Red Planet
The little rotorcraft covered 2,315 feet (705 meters) during its 69th flight, on Dec. 20.
NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter acquired this image of its own shadow during its 69th Red Planet flight, which occurred on Dec. 20, 2023. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)
NASA's Ingenuity helicopter set a new Mars record last month, by the skin of its robotic teeth.
The 4-pound (1.8 kilograms) Ingenuity covered 2,315 feet (705 meters) of Red Planet ground on Dec. 20, according to the mission's flight log. The old mark was 2,310 feet (704 m), which the little chopper set in April 2022.
Ingenuity reached 22.4 mph (36 kph) during the Dec. 20 hop, tying its Martian speed record.
Ingenuity landed with NASA's Perseverance rover in February 2021. Ever since, the two robots have been exploring Mars' Jezero Crater, which harbored a lake and a river delta in the ancient past.
The car-sized Perseverance is searching for signs of past Mars life and collecting samples for future return to Earth, where the precious material can be analyzed in greater detail.
Ingenuity was designed to show that aerial exploration is possible on Mars despite the planet's thin atmosphere. The rotorcraft did that over the course of five flights in the spring of 2021. NASA then granted a mission extension, during which Ingenuity is serving as a scout for its larger cousin.
The chopper has now racked up 65 flights on its extended mission. The Dec. 20 hop was Ingenuity's 69th overall, and it followed that one up with another sortie on Dec. 22.
Ingenuity has covered a total of about 11 miles (17.7 kilometers) over its 70 Mars flights, according to the flight log. Perseverance has gone farther; its odometer currently reads 14.744 miles(23.729 km).
Impressive as that latter number is, it's not a Red Planet record: NASA's Opportunity rover racked up 28.06 miles (45.16 km) during its operational life on the Martian surface, which lasted from January 2004 to June 2018.
Quelle: SC
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Update: 22.01.2024
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NASA finds Ingenuity after losing contact with the Mars helicopter
An illustration from NASA shows the Ingenuity Mars helicopter on the red planet's surface near the Perseverance rover, left.NASA/JPL-Caltech
NASA is back in contact with its beloved helicopter on Mars, Ingenuity, two days after a communication blackout.
Communications broke down on Thursday, when the little autonomous rotorcraft was sent on a "quick pop-up vertical flight," to test its systems after an unplanned early landing during its previous flight, the agency said in a status update on Friday night.
The Perseverance rover, which relays data between the helicopter and Earth during the flights, showed that Ingenuity climbed to its assigned maximum altitude of 40 feet, NASA said.
During its planned descent, the helicopter and rover stopped communicating with each other.
But good news came late on Saturday, when NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory tweeted that it had reestablished contact with the helicopter after instructing the rover "to perform long-duration listening sessions for Ingenuity's signal."
The Ingenuity team is reviewing the new data to understand the unexpected communications dropout that occurred during the helicopter's 72nd flight, it added.
Ingenuity has already exceeded its original mission, having proven that powered, controlled flight is possible in the thin and frigid Martian atmosphere, in what NASA describes as an otherworldly "Wright brothers moment."
It's since graduated to a new phase, setting the stage for future drone exploration on Mars and other worlds.
Quelle: npr