Perseverance Rover

Perseverance Rover Latest News

In a significant breakthrough, NASA’s Perseverance rover recently detected electrical activity in Mars’ atmosphere for the first time.

About Perseverance Rover

• Perseverance, nicknamed “Percy“, is a semi-autonomous rover the size of a small car designed to explore the surface of Mars.
• It is part of NASA’s ongoing Mars 2020 Mission.
• Launch: It was launched on July 30, 2020, from Cape Canaveral, Florida.
• Landing: Successfully landed on the surface of Mar’s Jezero Crater on February 18, 2021.
  • It is the first rover to actually land in an ancient Martian river delta, located inside the Jezero crater.
• Main Job: Seek signs of ancient life and collect samples of rock and regolith (broken rock and soil) for possible return to Earth.
  • The rover will be able to detect organic matter and minerals, map the chemical composition of rocks and sediments, and zoom in on distant rocks and rugged terrain for further inspection.
  • The rover will collect samples of rock and soil, encase them in tubes, and leave them on the planet’s surface to be returned to Earth at a future date.
• It is the first rover to record sounds on Mars and broadcast them back to Earth. 
• It is the first rover to create oxygen on Mars.  Perseverance carries an instrument called MOXIE, which can generate oxygen from Mars’ carbon dioxide atmosphere.

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Perseverance Rover Features

• Perseverance is built from the same basic design as Curiosity, which landed on Mars about a decade before Perseverance.
• It is about 3 metres long, 2.7 metres wide and 2.2 metres tall and its robotic arm is about 2.1 metres long.
• It is about the size of a car but weighs only about 1,025 kilograms with all instruments on board.
• Power source: Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (MMRTG). It converts heat from the radioactive decay of plutonium into electricity.
• It has a rectangular body, six wheels, a robotic arm, a drill for sampling rocks, cameras and scientific instruments.

Key Facts about Ingenuity Helicopter

• It is a small, autonomous aircraft. 
• Main Job: Technology demonstration to test the first powered flight on Mars. 
• The helicopter rode to Mars attached to the belly of the Perseverance rover.
• It became the first aircraft in history to make a powered, controlled flight on another planet.
• Ingenuity uses solar power to charge its batteries and can operate autonomously. 
• It is about 0.5 metres tall and its rotor blades span 1.2 metres across. 
• It weighs about 1.8 kg and is equipped with computers, navigation systems and two cameras.

Source: NIE