When NASA launched its Mars 2020 mission last year, it marked the end of one chapter and the start of another. The mission, which has traveled to space in recent months, is about to reach the surface of Mars. The landing is scheduled to take place on February 18, 2021 and NASA is counting the seconds before Martian soil is reached.
One of the biggest hurdles that remain between NASA and the success of the mission is the landing of the rover capsule. What the space agency often calls “the 7 minutes of anguish” when referring to this phase is the window of time in which the spacecraft begins its descent to lay down the most advanced machine ever created for the exploration of Earth. ‘a planet.
In an article, NASA provides an update on the mission and explains the potential dangers: “The aircraft is approximately 41.2 million kilometers from its destination on a total journey of 470.8 million kilometers and is currently traveling at 2 , 5 km / s. Once atop the Red Planet’s atmosphere, a seven-minute action-packed descent awaits: temperatures equivalent to the surface of the sun, a parachute inflation at supersonic speed and the very first autonomously guided landing on Mars. “.
A fully automated landing
Because of the distance between Earth and Mars, controlling the device in real time is simply out of the question. The controls take minutes to reach their destination, so the spacecraft will have to take into account by itself all the variables that could threaten the descent and landing. Engineers will only have to sit back in their chairs and cross their fingers for everything to go well.
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If the mission is successful and the landing goes off without a hitch, the potential for new discoveries on Mars is enormous. The Perseverence rover is the most sophisticated craft to ever fly to Mars and should be able to teach scientists on the Red Planet things that have never been studied in this way before.
“Perseverence’s evolved sensors will not just hunt for traces of fossilized microbial life, but also expand our knowledge of the geology of Mars, its past, present and future,” says Ken Farley, a scientist at the California Institute of Technology working on the March 2020 mission. “Our team of scientists have been very busy planning how best to work with what we anticipate to be a leading data source. This is the kind of “problem” we look forward to. “
All that remains is to take our trouble patiently and make an appointment on February 18 to see what will happen.
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Source : bgr
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