Precision landing of NASA's Perseverance rover on Mars
DLR Adlershof is contributing a wide range of scientific expertise
On 18 February 2021, NASA initiated the most precise landing ever attempted on the Red Planet. A spacecraft with the Perseverance rover on board entered the Martian atmosphere at just under 19,500 kilometres per hour. Within seven crucial minutes, the spacecraft decelerated to zero using its heat shield, parachute and braking thrusters to set the rover – suspended with cords – down in Jezero Crater at 21:45 (CET). Because the signal takes about 11 minutes to reach Earth from Mars, confirmation of the landing arrived at NASA's control centre at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (Pasadena, California) at 21:55 (CET). The German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) is represented on the Mars 2020 mission science team and will be involved in the evaluation of the data and images. Perseverance will search for signs of past life and collect rock samples that will eventually be returned to Earth by follow-up missions.
During the landing, sounds and high-resolution video recordings have been transmitted to Earth for the first time. NASA's most complex rover to date carries more cameras than any other interplanetary mission in the history of space exploration. There are 19 on the rover itself, plus four on other parts of the spacecraft that will collect footage of the entry, descent and landing. After landing and system checks, the first exploration of the surroundings will begin immediately. The 3D camera Mastcam-Z is programmed to record, process and transmit the first 360-degree panorama in 3D and in colour from a two-metre-high mast. All system components will then be tested over a period of several days before the scientific mission begins.
DLR is contributing a wide range of scientific expertise
"During the first few weeks, the panorama will give us a view of a very special landscape – sediments in a former, ancient crater lake on Mars with a well-preserved river delta. Traces of past life could be found in its fine-grained deposits," says Nicole Schmitz from the DLR Institute of Planetary Research in Berlin. "From the very beginning, we have also had data processing tasks in the science team," adds Frank Preusker from the same Institute. "Most notably, we will use our many years of experience in processing stereo image data into digital terrain models." At maximum zoom, the camera can make objects the size of a housefly visible across the length of a football field in individual images. The scientific management of Mastcam-Z is carried out by Arizona State University.
Susanne Schröder from the DLR Institute of Optical Sensor Systems in Berlin is involved in analysing measurements from the SuperCam instrument. Led by Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and IRAP/CNES in Toulouse (France), SuperCam makes it possible to determine the chemical composition and mineralogy of rocks, sand and dust in the rover's vicinity using lasers and without contact. Perseverance carries a total of seven scientific instruments. Scientists Jean-Pierre de Vera, Andreas Lorek and Stephen Garland from the DLR Institute of Planetary Research will be involved in the analysis of data from the Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer (MEDA) instrument. MEDA uses a series of sensors to measure temperature, wind speed and direction, pressure, relative humidity, and the size and shape of dust particles. The scientific management of MEDA lies with the Centro de Astrobiología in Madrid (Spain).
NASA is breaking new technological ground with a helicopter drone named Ingenuity. For the first time in the history of space exploration, an aircraft carried from Earth will ascend from the surface of another planet into its atmosphere, attempt a controlled flight over the area and land again to repeat the experiment several times. Mars has less than one-hundredth of the atmospheric pressure on Earth, so Ingenuity had to be built to be extremely lightweight with very large, extremely fast-rotating rotor blades. The drone has a mass of 1800 grams and the rotor blades have a span of 120 centimetres. A miniature camera will provide images from a height of 10 to 15 metres.
A busy schedule for Mars
Perseverance is the fifth rover that NASA has sent to Mars. In 1997, Sojourner landed on the Red Planet as part of the Mars Pathfinder mission and sent data and images to Earth for around three months. The twin rovers Spirit and Opportunity followed in 2004, covering longer distances for the first time, until the 2007 Martian winter ended communication with Spirit and a 2018 dust storm ended communication with Opportunity. In 2009, the Phoenix research station landed in the far north and in 2012, the Curiosity rover, whose chassis is identical to that of Perseverance, landed in Gale crater. In 2018, the InSight stationary landing platform touched down; InSight is a geophysical laboratory that explores the interior of the planet using, among other instruments, DLR's Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package (HP³), which includes the self-hammering 'Mars Mole'. NASA's Perseverance rover is designed for a mission duration of one Martian year (roughly two Earth years) with the option to extend the mission.
Another rover is scheduled to embark to the Red Planet during the next launch window in 2022; this rover would also search for traces of past life. As part of the ExoMars programme of the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Russian space agency Roscosmos, the Rosalind Franklin rover will, among other tasks, collect samples from a depth of up to two metres, bring them to the surface of Mars and perform high-precision analyses to look for biosignatures. Deep under Mars's surface, organic compounds are better protected from the destructive effects of cosmic radiation. DLR is contributing part of the scientific payload to Rosalind Franklin, including a high-resolution camera on the rover's mast that will allow researchers to analyse different rocks and determine the best possible locations for drilling.
Further information
- NASA MARS 2020 Mission – Perseverance Rover
- NASA Mars 2020 Mission Perseverance Rover Landing
- DLR Institute of Planetary Research
- DLR Institute of Optical Sensor Systems
Press contact:
Falk Dambowsky
Media Relations
German Aerospace Center (DLR)
Phone: +49 2203 601-3959
www.dlr.de/en/
Press release (extract) DLR, 23 February 2021