3 hours ago
Image Released, image copyrightNASA/JPL-CALTECH
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The Preserve navigation mast has been raised in a vertical position for the first time since the spacecraft was launched from the ground
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The US space agency NASA has released amazing videos taken by cameras installed on the Preservation Rover spacecraft of its landing on the surface of Mars.
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The videos included the final minutes of the spacecraft’s spectacular landing, until its robot wheels touched the surface of the planet.
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The videos showed a swirl of dust rising and pebbles flying as the spacecraft and the missile carrying it approached the surface of Mars near the Jezero crater.
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The Perseverance spacecraft was sent to Mars, packed with cameras, seven of which were intended for filming the landing on the surface of the Red Planet.
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Mike Watkins, director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California that is used as the central operating room for Mars missions, said these impressive videos are an example of the best the agency can do.
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“We have taken everyone with us on our trips around the solar system, through the orbits of Saturn, recalling the faded blue point, and the amazing panoramas of Mars. It is the first time that we can take pictures of an event like the landing of a spacecraft on Mars,” he added.
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He added, “We will learn something from looking at the performance of the vehicle that appears in this video. But the bulk of it will guide you during the journey.”
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All the cameras used for landing photography were of the sporty type available in the market that had a great deal of rigidity without making any significant adjustments.
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The cameras were placed in specific locations to photograph the main parts of the spacecraft, from the launch of the parachute that flies at supersonic speed, through the removal of the heat shield for the entry capsule and the journey made by the missile that was carrying the vehicle through space.
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The important snapshots spanned four minutes out of a total of the seven minutes it took to land on Mars.
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“We got 30 gigabytes of information in addition to 23,000 pictures of the spacecraft while landing on Mars,” said Dave Growell, who managed the cameras at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
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One of the three cameras aimed at the parachutes malfunctioned, but the other six cameras were still working fine. NASA had hoped for the success of recording the sound of the landing through a microphone, but unfortunately, that did not work.
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Image Released, image copyrightNASA/JPL-Caltech
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The Preservation spacecraft is equipped with seven other cameras, instruments and microphones
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Despite this, the team has succeeded in operating a microphone on the surface of Mars, which should make it possible to hear the sound of the spacecraft Perseverance while it is carrying out its exploration missions in the coming weeks. A muffled wind was also heard at Jizero crater.
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NASA had filmed videos on Mars before, but they were of low quality, appearing like “stopped motion” footage. On the other hand, the video clips taken on the vehicle with the Perseverance surprised everyone with the level of clarity and accuracy of the details.
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“I get goosebumps whenever I watch it,” said Gruel.
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Engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory continue to operate the vehicle’s mission-oriented robot.
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Last weekend, the Preserve’s navigation mast was raised to vertical for the first time, having been folded in a horizontal position since the spacecraft was launched from the ground last year.
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The lifting of the navigation mast allowed the operation of the “MasterCam-Z System” for the cameras intended for scientific purposes installed in it, so that the imaging system began to take panoramic shots of the area around the Jezero crater and the surface of the vehicle itself. The aim of photographing the surface of the vehicle in the form of panoramic shots to discover the damage that the vehicle may have suffered during the landing by flying stones.
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The control team will undertake a difficult task this week, which is to switch from the software used to achieve a safe landing of the vehicle on the surface of Mars to other software that enables the robot to move and use various equipment such as the vehicle’s robotic arm.
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Image Released, NASA/JPL-CALTECH
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The rover captured the clearest videos ever of the Martian surface
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It is expected that this process will take four Martian days, or what is called “Soul” (a Martian day equals 24 hours and 39 minutes). At the end of next week, we may be able to see the first test drive of several meters that the vehicle will travel after operating with the new software.
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There is great interest in the miniature helicopter that traveled with the spacecraft, as this instrument weighing 2 kilograms is expected to make the first flight outside the planet.
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But before that, Preservation needs first to get to the right place to place the plane for testing. Last Friday, the planners of this space mission said that it may take several weeks for the vehicle’s robot to reach the most suitable location for launching the miniature plane, which suggests that the small helicopter, which they call “Ingenity”, may not fly high until next April.
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The Preserve spacecraft landed at a site that takes a quadrilateral shape, which the scientists responsible for this space mission called “Canyon de Chile”, which is the name of an important national shrine in the US state of Arizona.
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The vehicle operating robot sits on a flat area of the Martian surface between two different geological units; The first has a smooth surface with the vehicle’s wheels resting on what appear to be dark volcanic rocks, while the second geological unit is more rugged and filled with rocks topped with much mineral olivine.
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And about 2 kilometers northwest of the landing site there is what appears, according to satellite images, to be the remnants of a delta that formed when a giant lake filled the Jezero crater billions of years ago.
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The delta is formed when rivers enter a wider area and are intercepted by the water, with amounts of silt and sand deposited. Preservance will search these sediments for indications of bacterial activity in the past.
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