Perseverance and its small helicopter Ingenuity landed on Mars on February 18.
REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, WASHINGTON — The American Space Agency (NASA) rover Perseverance and its small helicopter Ingenuity landed together inside Mars’ Jezero Crater on February 18. That means June 1 is Mars’ 100th day, or “sol” for the robotic duo (one sol lasts about 24 hours 40 minutes, slightly longer than a day on Earth).
Reported from Space, Wednesday (2/6), the first 100 soles have been full of action. For example, Perseverance has tested all its cameras and scientific instruments. Perseverance has emitted more than 75,000 images, captured the first true audio on the surface of Mars, supported and documented Ingenuity’s historic flight campaign.
Perseverance has produced oxygen from carbon dioxide, which dominates the Martian atmosphere. The production of oxygen comes from an instrument called MOXIE which is designed to demonstrate technology that could help humanity gain a foothold on Mars in the future.)
Perseverance also began to travel to its first “exploration zone”. One hundred soles is just the beginning. Perseverance has just begun to focus on its own science mission, which will last at least one Martian year, or 687 Earth days. The mission had two main goals: to hunt for signs of ancient Martian life and to collect and store dozens of samples for future returns to Earth.
“Jezero is a great place to do such work,” said the mission team member.
Jazero is a 28 mile (45 km) wide crater housing a large lake and river delta billions of years ago.
Ingenuity’s work isn’t finished either. The 1.8 kg helicopter was successful for a month by completing a five-flight technology demonstration. Ingenuity has embarked on an extended mission designed to demonstrate the helicopter’s potential to serve as scouts for Mars explorer and human explorers.
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