Initially planned for July 17, 2020, then for July 20 and then for July 22, the launch of the rover Perseverance has again been reported by NASA. He will not finally leave around March until next July 30.
Delay in assembling the Atlas V launcher, contamination incident in an ultra-clean room, defect observed during a dress rehearsal. Several reasons are cited by NASA to explain these launch delays repeat.
The problem is that the launch window is not expandable. Mars and Earth are in fact on the same side of the Sun only once every 26 months. Thus, the launch window closes on August 5. It was then extended to August 11. And NASA teams are now talking about August 15. If Perseverance is not launched by then, we will have to wait … until 2022!
The teams remain optimistic. Yesterday, the National Center for Space Studies (Cnes) and the CNRS presented the stakes of the Mars 2020 mission. Because Perseverance will take to March a Franco-American instrument called SuperCam. The tool is intended to study the chemistry and mineralogy of the rocks and soils of the red planet, but also the composition of its atmosphere.
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