In the third and last of the exciting Mars missions to happen in the summer of 2020, the NASA rover 'Perseverance' has begun its long journey to the surface of the Red Planet. Blasting off earlier this week from Cape Canaveral in Florida, the rover should reach its destination by February, traversing 300 million miles. Coming nearly a decade after the last US Mars mission, 'Perseverance' in many ways is humanity's most ambitious attempt yet to truly understand the Red Planet and its long-gone history of potentially hosting life. Its function goes past previous attempts that at best, aimed at making novelty observations due to limitations in rover designs. The makers of Perseverance' have referred to it as an all in one science laboratory. The rover is roughly the size of a car and is nuclear powered, providing a robust and rugged exploration vehicle that also has seven scientific instruments, two microphones and no less than 23 cameras that vary in the functions they fulfil. Most excitingly, in addition to the expected drills for collecting samples, the rover is also carrying an experimental exploration helicopter known as 'Ingenuity'. When and if it takes off the Martian surface, it will be humanity's first attempt at controlled flight on another planet. Ingenuity is not carrying any scientific equipment of its own as it is its own scientific experiment. The helicopter has been designed for theoretical use on Mars with a whole host of innovations that make the whole craft lighter and more durable against the uncompromisingly hostile Martian atmosphere. The helicopter also needs to have larger rotors and spin much faster than it would on Earth to generate the required lift. This is on account of the fact that the Martian atmosphere is 99 per cent less dense on Earth. As full manual control of the craft will be difficult, Ingenuity will have a lot of room for autonomous decision making with the broader commands for the craft being sent well in advance. If Ingenuity succeeds in its own separate mission, it could unlock the exploration of Mars on a scale that has only been the stuff of science fiction till date. Currently, humanity must rely on orbiters to provide data and high definition images of the Martian surface, crafts like Ingenuity could add another dimension to the process by providing more close up coverage, particularly of areas that are difficult for rovers to normally reach.
In keeping with its objective of finding possible traces of life on Mars, the Perseverance rover will land at the base of an 800 feet plus deep crater known as 'Jezero' which was a lake 3.5 billion years ago. Scientists have placed their hopes in finding microbial signs of life in this crater through the onboard instruments. Of course, given the magnitude of any such possible discovery, it is always certain that there would be those sceptical of the data and the technology used to unearth it. It is for this reason that Perseverance will be drilling in areas of the crater and storing samples thus obtained for analysis by various advanced labs back on Earth. The samples themselves will be stored in capsules and left scattered on the surface for future rovers to 'fetch' and optimistically be back on Earth by 2031. Interestingly, as Perseverance is a stepping stone in proving many of the technologies that will be needed for NASA's upcoming Artemis Programme, it will also be experimenting with the process of converting elements of the carbon dioxide-rich Martian atmosphere into rocket propellant or even breathable oxygen.
Coming after a decade of near inaction on the space front by NASA, the current programme is a sign of a new space age that has not been seen in decades since Soviet and US competition first took humanity to space. NASA has managed to pull off the programme even with numerous budgetary issues that stood in the way. Space, after all, is not a cheap endeavour. Consider the cost of the first phase of the much-touted Artemis Programme. The first phase of the plan that will be played out between 2020-24 has the objective of landing a man and a woman on the south pole of the moon by 2024. That itself would lead to the possible setting-up of a 'moon base' that will then allow for the next giant leap — manned missions to Mars. This phase, between 2020 and 2024 is alone estimated to cost close to USD 35 billion. But in the fight to advance humanity, is the monetary cost really a relevant factor? Maybe but then again, the US will only be the pathfinder, humanity is expected to follow once this 'way to the stars' has been opened up, leading to a possibility of truly global initiatives that will not simply be pride projects for the benefit of one nation alone.
At present, the Perseverance rover is cruising along at speeds of over 24,600 miles per hour after encountering initial snafus that left the craft in 'safe-mode' after launch on account of the rover being colder than expected but NASA has made the assurance that the mission is going ahead as planned and the cooling has been dealt with. The next big moment of tension will be during the so-called 'seven minutes of terror' when the rover will enter and descend through the Martian atmosphere.