Perseverance took another big step toward liftoff.
【Introduction】: The Perseverance Mars rover will be stacked on Cape Canaveral Air Force Base on the United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket in Florida, a huge milestone ahead of the planned launch.
Nasa's 2020 Mars rover Perseverance awaits assembly with the Atlas 5 launch vehicle at Cape Canaveral Air Force Base in Florida. (Image: NASA/KSC)
NASA's next-generation Mars rover has been equipped with launching rockets.
At Cape Canaveral Air Force Base in Florida, the Mars rover Perseverance has been placed on top of the Combined Launcher Atlas 5 launch vehicle. This was a major milestone ahead of the launch program.
John McNamee, project manager for the Perseverance mission, also known as Mars 2020, said in a statement: "I have witnessed many times the assembly of spacecraft and rockets. ”
"But this launch is special, there are a lot of people who have contributed a lot to this moment." McNamee, who works at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, said, "I want to say to all of them, we're here together, and we're going to succeed in sending Perseverance to Mars together."
NASA's Mars 2020 mission: The Perseverance rover and its payload fairing have been mounted on top of the Atlas 5 rocket. This photo was taken on July 7, 2020, at Cape Canaveral Air Force Base in Florida. (Image source: NASA/KSC)
According to NASA officials, a 60-ton heavy take-off and landing machine on the roof of the Vertical Container Factory (VIF) at the 41 space launch site at Cape Canaveral on Tuesday lifted a composite 129 feet (39 meters) above the ground, including machine-related hardware such as Perseverance and its protective payload fairing, and then placed it on top of the Atlas 5 launch vehicle. Finally, the engineers completed all the necessary physical and electrical connections between the launch vehicle and the spacecraft.
This landmark assembly marks the final phase of pre-launch testing for the Mars 2020 mission, when the detection probe and launch vehicle can be evaluated separately or together. NASA officials say the launch portfolios will remain in the vertical container shop until July 28, after which they will take a train to a launch pad 1,800 feet (550 meters) away, which takes about 40 minutes.
Perseverance was not scheduled to launch on July 30. The $2.7 billion launch was held around August 15, which was supposed to be a wide window — originally scheduled for July 17 — but was pushed back 13 days due to process matters.
As long as Perseverance is launched this summer, it will land inside Mars' Jezero Crater on February 18, 2021. Jezero Crater is 28 miles, or 45 kilometers wide, and the delta inside the crater was once a lake. The rover will look for traces of ancient creatures in this area.
Perseverance will also do other work, such as analyzing the geological conditions of Jezero Crater and searching for groundwater or subsurface ice to test equipment that can produce oxygen in the thin atmosphere of Mars dominated by carbon dioxide. The six-wheeled probe will also collect dozens of samples and will be brought back to Earth by a joint NASA and European Space Agency operation as early as 2031.
In addition, during the long flight to Mars, Perseverance will have some companions: a 4-pound (1.8 kg) helicopter with the nickname Original, which is mounted on the probe's abdomen. If all goes well, the Original will make several short test flights in the red planet's skies, potentially paving the way for future Mars rotorcraft to conduct deep aerial exploration.
Related knowledge
Perseverance was built by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory for rovers in the Mars 2020 mission. The probe was launched on July 30, 2020 at 7:50 a.m. (11:50 UTC),[5] successfully landed on Mars at 3:55 p.m. California time on February 18, 2021, and landed at Jezero Crater. On March 5 of the same year, Perseverance completed its first flight test on Mars.
Perseverance has a roughly identical appearance to Curiosity, carrying 7 scientific instruments, 23 camera lenses, and two microphones. The mission plans to probe the surface of Mars near Jezero Crater. Perseverance also carried a drone called Witty to accompany Perseverance in scientific research. On April 20, 2021, Perseverance successfully converted carbon dioxide from the Martian atmosphere into oxygen, the first oxygen production outside of Earth. On September 6, 2021, Perseverance successfully obtained the first Sample of Martian rocks. [10]
BY: Mike Wall
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