Agencies
Last week, NASA announced the end of the Ingenuity helicopter’s mission on Mars, after one of its blades broke and it was no longer able to fly.
Although this news was sad for space enthusiasts, it means that the helicopter added about 1.8 kilograms to the pile of waste that humans threw to the surface of the red planet.
Scientists say there are more than seven tons of debris scattered across Mars, roughly equivalent to seven giraffes or three rhinos, ranging from parachutes and heat shields deployed during landing, to bits of craters, pieces of tires, and of course the wing tip of the Ingenuity helicopter. .
Three rovers are currently still working hard on the surface of Mars to help find conclusive evidence that our planetary neighbor once hosted life: NASA’s Curiosity and Perseverance spacecraft, and the Chinese rover Zurong.
During operation, rovers are not classified as space junk, but for those that crashed or “died” (their mission was over), they are all classified as junk.
This includes the Mars 6 lander, which malfunctioned during landing, and the British Beagle 2, which failed to contact Earth after its scheduled landing on Christmas Day 2003.
Shortly after the launch of Beagle 2, NASA successfully sent the Spirit and Opportunity rovers, two pioneering rovers that discovered not only that Mars was wetter than previously thought during its past, but that conditions could have supported life. Microbial.
Both have worked far beyond their initial 90-day missions, with Opportunity roaming the planet for nearly 15 years, only being abandoned in 2019.
In 2022, NASA’s “InSight” lander also ended its mission after four years of work on the surface of the red planet, with an emotional farewell on the “X” platform.
“I’m really low on energy, so this may be the last photo I can send,” the statement read. Don’t worry about me though: my time here has been productive and peaceful. If I could continue talking to my mission team, I would, but I’ll be stopping work here soon. Thank you for staying with me.”
“InSight” followed the US Space Agency’s “Phoenix” lander, which landed in May 2008, but quickly ended its mission in November of that year.
And it’s not just entire spacecraft that cause debris: operational rovers tend to leave a trail of trash in their wake. The Perseverance rover dropped a drill bit during a mission in July 2021, and the rugged surface of Mars created many holes in its tire tracks, leaving pieces of material behind as the rover traveled.
However, some missions have left more dramatic evidence of their existence, especially those that failed.
For example, NASA’s ambitious Polar Lander was lost upon arrival in December 1999. In 2005, the agency released photos of what it believed to be the crash site, including burn marks and a parachute.
However, it’s all in the name of science, Dr. James Blake from the University of Warwick’s Department of Physics told Metro.
He added that it is important that future missions are designed with sustainability in mind to ensure that the human footprint is reduced to a minimum. The ultimate goal of these exploratory missions is for humans to eventually land on Mars, and when we get there, it is likely that all the vehicles that came before us will be there. They serve as treasured relics of human endeavour, rather than trash to be cleaned up.
