After years of preparations, NASA is sending another robot explorer to probe our planet neighbor Mars on 30 July. The Fortitude Rover will follow Curiosity and other Rovers’ footsteps in walking beyond the Earth, and traveling with it is the Ingenuity helicopter, the first heavy-to-heavy vehicle to fly on another planet.
Here is everything you need to know about the Perseverance launch, including how to watch it.
How to view persistence projection
The launch will be shown on NASA TV, a 24-hour streaming channel of the space agency. You can stream the channel in the player at the top of this page or on the NASA TV website.
Coverage begins on Thursday, July 30 at 4 am PT / 7 pm ET, with its launch scheduled for 4:50 pm PT / 7:50 pm ET. Following the launch, there will be a post-launch news conference at 8:30 pm PT / 11:30 pm ET.
Even more ways to participate in the perseverance launch
NASA is encouraging people to use the hashtag #CountdownToMars when it comes to tweeting or posting about tweets, and even special augmented reality filters on Instagram for those who persevere I am passionate.
The agency has also put together a virtual reality event: Oculus will host the launch in Virtual Reality Live on Facebook, so if you have a headset, you can tune in as if you’re really there.
All about persistence rover
The Perseverance Rover is a largely autonomous science vehicle, with a nearly 10-foot-long seven-foot robotic arm and six highly propelled wheels that allow it to climb rocks and hard terrains. Weighing in at around 2,260 pounds or over 1,000 kilograms, it is based on the same design as the previous Curiosity Rover and is considerably heavier than older Mars Rovers like the Opportunity.
The rover is equipped with seven instruments, including cameras, microphones and spectrometers, to answer one of astronomy’s biggest questions: Has there ever been life on Mars?
The rover additionally has a collection of drills, a sampling arm, and a sample tube, which will be used to collect samples of all the Mars rocks that will be collected and returned to the surface of the planet for future missions Can be used to bring. to soil.
The rover also carries an experimental device called MOXIE (Mars Oxygen In-situ Resource Utilization Experiment), which will attempt to make oxygen from carbon dioxide in the martyr atmosphere, an invaluable tool to send humans to the Red Planet for a day. Will happen.
A timeline of launch day
After the completion of all its investigations and reviews, the rover is secured inside a rocket that will take it to Mars with a descent phase of the Ingenuity helicopter and Akash Crane to land on the Red Planet.
The launch will use the same type of rocket that previous NASA Mars missions Curiosity and Insight also used: the N Atlas V, which will be brought to launch 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Overall, the spacecraft would weigh about 1.17 million pounds, or more than 500,000 kilograms, including rockets, rovers, helicopters, fuel and descent stages.
The launch window opens at 7:50 am, which means that this is the earliest time that a takeoff can take place. It is possible that the launch may be delayed due to weather conditions, but the launch is expected at this time.
Rovers and helicopters will begin their eight-month journey on Mars and are scheduled to land in the Jjero Crater on February 18, 2021, when they can begin exploring this promising area for clues to ancient life.
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