NASA to Host Virtual Briefing on February Perseverance Mars Rover Landing

NASA is hosting a media briefing on Wednesday, Jan. 27, at 4:30 p.m. EST to discuss the upcoming landing of the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover. The event will air live on NASA TV, the agency's website, and YouTube. Perseverance lands Feb. 18, carrying new science instruments and technologies, including the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter on its belly. Perseverance will use a drill on the end of its robotic arm to capture rock and regolith (broken rock and dust) samples in metal tubes, which will be deposited on the surface of Mars for a future mission to collect and return to Earth. The rover will seek signs of ancient life on the Red Planet as a primary goal.

Perseverance was built and managed for NASA by the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.

Participating in the briefing are:


Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters
Lori Glaze, director, Planetary Science Division, NASA Headquarters
Matt Wallace, Mars 2020 deputy project manager, JPL
Allen Chen, Mars 2020 entry, descent, and landing lead, JPL
Ken Farley, Mars 2020 project scientist, Caltech
Briony Horgan, Mars 2020 science team member, Purdue University


Media who would like to ask questions via phone during the event must provide their name and affiliation by noon EST Tuesday, Jan. 26, to Rexana Vizza at rexana.v.vizza@jpl.nasa.gov.

Media and the public also may ask questions on social media during the briefing using #CountdownToMars.

To learn more about Perseverance, visit:

https://nasa.gov/perseverance

 and

https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/

Seven things to know about the NASA rover about to land on Mars

With only about 50 million miles (80 million kilometers) left to go in its 293-million-mile (471-million-kilometer) journey, NASA's Mars 2020 Perseverance rover is nearing its new planetary home. The spacecraft has begun its approach to the Red Planet and in 43 days, on Feb. 18, 2021, Perseverance will blaze through Mars' atmosphere at about 12,100 mph (19,500 kph), touching down gently on the surface about seven minutes later. "We're working on our last adjustments to put Perseverance in perfect position to land in one of the most interesting places on Mars," said Fernando Abilleira, deputy mission manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. "The team can't wait to put these wheels in some Martian dirt." Built and managed by JPL for NASA, Perseverance will be joining another rover and lander currently at work on Mars, with several orbiters in the skies above. What sets this six-wheeled robot apart?

1. Perseverance is searching for signs of ancient life.


While the surface of Mars is a frozen desert today, scientists have learned from previous NASA missions that the Red Planet once hosted running water and warmer environments at the surface that could have supported microbial life.

"We want Perseverance to help us answer the next logical question: Are there actually signs of past microbial life on Mars?" said Katie Stack Morgan, deputy project scientist at JPL. "This demanding goal means sending the most sophisticated robotic scientist yet to Mars."

To tackle this question, which is key in the field of astrobiology, Perseverance carries a new suite of cutting-edge science instruments. Two of them will play a particularly important role in the search for potential signs of past life: SHERLOC (short for Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman and Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals), which can detect organic matter and minerals, and PIXL (short for Planetary Instrument for X-ray Lithochemistry), which maps the chemical composition of rocks and sediments. The instruments will allow scientists to analyze these features together at a higher level of detail than any Mars rover has achieved before.

Perseverance will also use some instruments to gather science data from a distance: Mastcam-Z's cameras can zoom in on rock textures from as far away as a soccer field, while SuperCam will use a laser to zap rock and regolith (broken rock and dust) to study their composition in the resulting vapor. RIMFAX (short for Radar Imager for Mars' Subsurface Experiment) will use radar waves to probe geological features underground.

2. The rover is landing in a place with a high potential for finding these signs of past microbial life.


Terrain that is interesting to scientists can be challenging to land on. Thanks to new technologies that enable Perseverance to target its landing site more accurately and to autonomously avoid landing hazards, the spacecraft can safely touch down in a place as intriguing as Jezero Crater, a 28-mile-wide (45-kilometer-wide) basin that has steep cliffs, sand dunes, and boulder fields.

More than 3.5 billion years ago, a river there flowed into a body of water about the size of Lake Tahoe, depositing sediments in a fan shape known as a delta. The Perseverance science team believes this ancient river delta and lake deposits could have collected and preserved organic molecules and other potential signs of microbial life.

3. Perseverance is also collecting important data about Mars' geology and climate.

Context is everything. Mars orbiters have been collecting images and data from Jezero Crater from about 200 miles (322 kilometers) above, but finding signs of ancient life on the surface requires much closer inspection. It requires a rover like Perseverance.

Understanding Mars' past climate conditions and reading the geological history embedded in its rocks will give scientists a richer sense of what the planet was like in its distant past. Studying the Red Planet's geology and climate could also give us a sense of why Earth and Mars - despite some early similarities - ended up so different.

4. Perseverance is the first leg of a round trip to Mars.


The verification of ancient life on Mars carries an enormous burden of proof. Perseverance is the first rover to bring a sample caching system to Mars in order to package promising samples for return to Earth by a future mission.

Rather than pulverizing rock the way the drill on NASA's Curiosity rover does, Perseverance's drill will cut intact rock cores that are about the size of a piece of chalk and will place them in sample tubes that it will store until the rover reaches an appropriate drop-off location on Mars. The rover could also potentially deliver the samples to a lander that is part of the planned Mars sample return campaign by NASA and ESA (the European Space Agency).

Once the samples are here on Earth, we can examine them with instruments too large and complex to send to Mars, providing far more information about them than even the most sophisticated rover could.

5. Perseverance carries instruments and technology that will help pave the way for human missions to the Moon and Mars.


Among the future-looking technologies on this mission that will benefit human exploration is Terrain-Relative Navigation. As part of the spacecraft's landing system, Terrain-Relative Navigation will enable the descending spacecraft to quickly and autonomously comprehend its location over the Martian surface and modify its trajectory.

Perseverance will also have more autonomy on the surface than any other rover, including self-driving smarts that will allow it to cover more ground in a day's operations with fewer instructions from engineers on Earth. This fast-traverse capability will make exploration of the Moon, Mars, and other celestial bodies more efficient for other vehicles.

In addition, Perseverance carries a technology experiment called MOXIE (short for Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment) that will produce oxygen from Mars' carbon dioxide atmosphere. It will demonstrate a way that future explorers might produce oxygen for rocket propellant as well as for breathing.

Two other instruments will help engineers design systems for future human explorers to land and survive on Mars: The MEDLI2 (Mars Entry, Descent, and Landing Instrumentation 2) package is a next-generation version of what flew on the Mars Science Laboratory mission that delivered the Curiosity rover, while the MEDA (Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer) instrument suite provides information about weather, climate, and surface ultraviolet radiation and dust.

Perseverance is also giving a ride to the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter. A technology experiment separate from the rover's science mission, Ingenuity will attempt the first powered, controlled aircraft flight at another world. If the helicopter is successful in its 30-Martian-day (31-Earth-day) demonstration window, the data could help future explorations of the Red Planet - including those by astronauts - by adding a new aerial dimension.

6. The Perseverance rover embodies the NASA - and the scientific - spirit of overcoming challenges.

Getting the spacecraft to the launch pad during a pandemic, searching for signs of ancient life, collecting samples, and proving new technologies are no easy feats. Nor is a soft touchdown on Mars: Only about 50% of Martian landing attempts, by any space agency, have been successful.

The mission team draws inspiration from the name of its rover, with particular awareness of the challenges the entire world is experiencing at this time. With that in mind, the mission installed a special plate to honor the dedication and hard work of the medical community and first responders around the globe. The team hopes to inspire the entire world, and future explorers, to forge new paths and make discoveries on which the next generation can build.

7. You will get to ride along.

The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission carries more cameras than any interplanetary mission in history, with 19 cameras on the rover itself and four on other parts of the spacecraft involved in entry, descent, and landing. As with previous Mars missions, the Mars 2020 Perseverance mission plans to make raw and processed images available on the mission's website.

If all goes well, the public will be able to experience in high-definition what it's like to land on Mars - and hear the sounds of landing for the first time with an off-the-shelf microphone affixed to the side of the rover. Another microphone on SuperCam will help scientists understand the property of rocks the instrument is examining and can also listen to the wind.

If you are among the 10.9 million people who signed up to send your name to Mars, your name is stenciled on one of three silicon chips embedded on a plate on the rover that carries the words "Explore as one" in Morse code.

A European dream team for Mars

European scientists will help select rocks and soil from Mars in the search for life on our planetary neighbour. Five European researchers are part of NASA's Mars 2020 science team to select the most promising martian samples bound for Earth. The mission to Mars launched last week for its seven-month journey to the Red Planet. Once there, the team will guide the Perseverance rover as it hunts for evidence of ancient microbial life. The group is made up of researchers from Belgium, France, Sweden and the UK. "These top scientists from across Europe are experts on how to collect, analyse and read the history of the rocks under our feet. Now they will also have to anticipate the needs and challenges of working with martian samples returned to laboratories back on Earth," says ESA's Mars Sample Return acting programme scientist Gerhard Kminek. For the next three years, the team will be at the core of a wider NASA team. Mark Sephton, Professor of organic geochemistry at Imperial College London in the UK, sees it as "a fantastic opportunity to have some of the finest minds in the world come together to solve one of the biggest questions in the Solar System: was there life on Mars?" Sandra Siljestrom, from Sweden's research institute RISE, dreams of having the "Bring it to me now!" feeling while remotely analysing a rock spotted on Mars at the rover landing site - the Jezero crater. The area contains sediments of an ancient river delta, where evidence of past life could be preserved if it ever existed on the planet.

Once the Perseverance rover retrieves samples of rock and soil from Mars, it will seal them in canisters and drop them on the surface to be collected by a future retrieval mission.

"The Mars 2020 mission is the first step for the ultimate martian challenge: the Mars Sample Return campaign. NASA and ESA aim to deliver the material from the martian surface to Earth by 2031," adds Gerhard.

To bring Mars samples to Earth, three carefully timed missions are required.

NASA will deliver the ESA Sample Fetch Rover to the vicinity of the Mars 2020 landing site. This European rover will autonomously track down and collect up to 36 sample tubes deposited by Perseverance, and take them to NASA's Mars Ascent vehicle.

Better together
The team of European scientists believes the road to Mars and back to Earth is like a long-distance run that is best undertaken together.

"I hope that, as a group of scientists with diverse expertise, we will help maximise the quality, depth and breadth of research possible with the returned samples," says palaeontologist Keyron Hickman-Lewis, who has closely worked with ESA's ExoMars rover team.

No place like Mars
Mars is currently the only planetary body accessible to humans on which scientists expect to find relatively unspoilt geological records from the early history of the Solar System.

Finding traces of life "would represent an incredible discovery and a be a gamechanger for our views on how organisms emerge," says cosmochemist Frederic Moynier.

There is no place quite like Mars to find out whether the conditions for supporting life ever existed beyond Earth.

"The Red Planet is the perfect laboratory to check as the environment has dramatically changed over time," says Vinciane Debaille , geochemist at the Universite Libre de Bruxelles, in Belgium.

Sandra has little doubt, "there will be surprises when we land on Mars". She and her new team cannot wait to receive the first data.

The Launch Is Approaching for NASA's Next Mars Rover, Perseverance

NASA's Perseverance Mars rover is just over a month from its July 20 targeted launch date. The rover's astrobiology mission will seek signs of past microscopic life on Mars, explore the geology of the Jezero Crater landing site, and demonstrate key technologies to help prepare for future robotic and human exploration. And the rover will do all that while collecting the first samples of Martian rock and regolith (broken rock and dust) for return to Earth by a set of future missions. "Fifty-one years ago today, NASA was deep into final preparations for the first Moon landing," said NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine. "Today we stand at the threshold of another monumental moment in exploration: sample collection at Mars. As we celebrate the heroes of Apollo 11 today, future generations may well recognize the women and men of Perseverance - not only for what they will achieve 100 million miles from home, but for what they were able to accomplish on this world on the road to launch." The Mars 2020 mission has been slated to liftoff this summer ever since the agency announced the project in December 2012. Owing to the relative positions of Earth and Mars to each other, launch opportunities come up only every 26 months. If Perseverance didn't head to Mars this summer, the project would have to wait until September 2022 to try again, seriously impacting the long-term objectives of NASA's Mars Exploration Program and increasing overall mission risk.

Significant challenges come with the territory when planning a Mars mission. In the case of Perseverance - the heaviest payload yet to go to the Red Planet - those included implementing an entire test project to confirm the soundness of their parachute design.

There was also an extensive effort to hone the performance of the rover's Sample Caching System, the most complex and the cleanest mechanism ever sent into space. But of all the hurdles faced by the men and women of Perseverance, the coronavirus pandemic provided the greatest challenge, with safety precautions requiring much work to be done remotely.

"The team never wavered in its pursuit of the launch pad," said Michael Watkins, director of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. "It was through their dedication and the help of other NASA facilities that we have made it this far."

Persevering
Amid the added strain of staying on schedule while incorporating additional precautions - and keeping friends, families and colleagues safe - the Mars 2020 mission team has been acutely aware of the dedication and hard work of people in the medical community around the world during the pandemic.

With them in mind, the mission installed a plate on the left side of the rover chassis, between the middle and rear wheels. The graphic on the 3-by-5-inch (8-by-13-centimeter) aluminum plate depicts Earth, supported by the medical community - represented by the ancient symbol of the serpent-entwined rod. A line depicting a spacecraft's trajectory rises from Central Florida toward Mars, represented as a small dot in the background.

"We wanted to demonstrate our appreciation for those who have put their personal well-being on the line for the good of others," said Matt Wallace, Perseverance deputy project manager at JPL. "It is our hope that when future generations travel to Mars and happen upon our rover, they will be reminded that back on Earth in the year 2020 there were such people."

All the major spacecraft components of the rover mission (from the aeroshell and descent stage to the cruise stage and rover) are now in the configuration they will be in on the launch pad at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Later this week, they'll be enclosed in the payload fairing that will protect them during launch. Next week, the fairing and spacecraft will be transported to Space Launch Complex 41, where they'll be attached to the top of a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket.

"The mission has one launch, 314 million miles of interplanetary space and seven minutes of terror to get safely onto the surface of Mars," said Lori Glaze, director of NASA's Planetary Science Division. "When we see the landscape at Jezero Crater for the first time and we truly begin to realize the scientific bounty before us, the fun really begins."

CAPTION The Red Planet's surface has been visited by eight NASA spacecraft. The ninth will be the first that includes gathering Mars samples for future return to Earth.

Mars Helicopter attached to Perseverance Mars rover

With the launch period of NASA's Mars 2020 Perseverance rover opening in 14 weeks, final preparations of the spacecraft continue at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. In the past week, the assembly, test and launch operations team completed important milestones, fueling the descent stage - also known as the sky crane - and attaching the Mars Helicopter, which will be the first aircraft in history to attempt power-controlled flight on another planet. Over the weekend, 884 pounds (401 kilograms) of hydrazine monopropellant were loaded into the descent stage's four fuel tanks. As the aeroshell containing the descent stage and rover enter the Martian atmosphere on Feb. 18, 2021, the propellant will be pressure-fed through 120 feet (37 meters) of stainless steel and titanium tubing into eight Mars landing engines. The engines' job: to slow the spacecraft, which will be traveling at about 180 mph (80 meters per second) when it's 7,200 feet (2,200 meters) in altitude, to 1.7 mph (0.75 meter per second) by the time it's about 66 feet (20 meters) above the surface. Maintaining this rate of descent, the stage will then perform the sky crane maneuver: Nylon cords spool out to lower the rover 25 feet (7.6 meters) below the descent stage; When the spacecraft senses touchdown at Jezero Crater, the connecting cords are severed and the descent stage flies off. "The last hundred days before any Mars launch is chock-full of significant milestones," said David Gruel, the Mars 2020 assembly, test and launch operations manager at JPL. "Fueling the descent stage is a big step. While we will continue to test and evaluate its performance as we move forward with launch preparations, it is now ready to fulfill its mission of placing Perseverance on the surface on Mars."

The Helicopter
After the descent stage fueling, the system that will deliver the Mars Helicopter to the surface of the Red Planet was integrated with Perseverance. The helicopter, which weighs 4 pounds (1.8 kilograms) and features propellers 4 feet (1.2 meters) in diameter, is cocooned within the delivery system.

In one of the first steps in the day-long process on April 6, technicians and engineers made 34 electrical connections between the rover, the helicopter and its delivery system on the rover's belly. After confirming data and commands could be sent and received, they attached the delivery system to the rover.

Finally, the team confirmed the helicopter could receive an electrical charge from the rover. Before being deployed onto the surface of Jezero Crater, the Mars Helicopter will rely on the rover for power. Afterward, it will generate its own electrical power through a solar panel located above its twin counter-rotating propellers.

The helicopter will remain encapsulated on the rover's belly for the next year and will be deployed around the beginning of May - roughly two-and-a-half months after Perseverance's landing. Once the rover drives about 330 feet (100 meters) away and the helicopter undergoes an extensive systems check, it will execute a flight-test campaign for up to 30 days.

The Perseverance rover is a robotic scientist weighing 2,260 pounds (1,025 kilograms). It will search for signs of past microbial life, characterize the planet's climate and geology, collect samples for future return to Earth and pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet. No matter what day Perseverance launches during its July 17-Aug. 5 launch period, it will land on Mars' Jezero Crater on Feb. 18, 2021.

Mars 2020 Spacecraft Comes Full Circle

Engineers took NASA's Mars 2020 for a spin on Aug. 29, 2019. The 2,300-pound (1,040-kilogram) Martian vehicle was rotated clockwise and counterclockwise at about 1 revolution per minute on what is called a spin table in the clean room of the Spacecraft Assembly Facility at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. The engineers were looking for the rover's center of gravity, or the point at which weight is evenly dispersed on all sides. Establishing the rover's center of gravity is a key part of the assembly process and helps ensure that the spacecraft travels smoothly from launch to entry, descent and landing on Mars as calculated. Engineers can add weights in order to help balance out the vehicle. In the end, they affixed nine tungsten weights totaling 44 pounds (20 kilograms) to the rover chassis at predetermined attachment points to get the center of gravity just right. "The spin table process is similar to how a gas station would balance a new tire before putting it on your car," said Lemil Cordero, Mars 2020 mass properties engineer at JPL. "We rotate the rover back and forth and look for asymmetries in its mass distribution. Then, similar to your gas station putting small weights on the tire's rim to bring it into balance, we'll put small balance masses on the rover in specific locations to get its center of gravity exactly where we want it." This was the assembled rover's first spin table test to determine its center of gravity; a second and final spin table test will occur at a NASA facility at Cape Canaveral in Florida next spring. JPL is building and will manage operations of the Mars 2020 rover for NASA. The rover will launch on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket in July 2020 from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral. NASA's Launch Services Program, based at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, is responsible for launch management.

When the rover lands at Jezero Crater on Feb. 18, 2021, it will be the first spacecraft in the history of planetary exploration with the ability to accurately retarget its point of touchdown during the landing sequence.