Perseverance and Ingenuity

This has been a historical landmark for human beings and a breath of fresh air in the midst of a global pandemic. Hope is still alive!

February, 18th 2021

A combined phenomenal effort of NASA , JPL or Jet Propulsion Labs and so many beautifully brilliant minds sent a mini-cooper-sized rover named Perseverance to a gentle landing on the Martian surface. The name came from a brilliant young student named Alexander Mather in Burke, Virginia; The winning entry was submitted at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory out of more than 28,000 entries. This is NASA's fifth rover to successfully touch down. Perseverance was designed to seek habitability or identify 'past' environments that are capable of supporting microbial life. Biosignatures of past microbial life are more often found within specific rock types that are known to preserve the signs of life over a long timeline. Perseverance will also be collecting core and regolith, or soil, samples to store them within sterilized compartments inside of her chassis.

A dusty, iron oxide crater named Jezero is now her new home where a technology demonstration drone named Ingenuity hitched a ride to help pave a path for larger missions and larger crafts. The drone will not be doing science but will be a step in the right direction of traversing the Martian atmosphere. After receiving a full charge from Perseverance upon landing, Ingenuity will then be on its own- fit with its own solar rechargeable batteries and a camera to document its journey on Mars.

Perseverance will be doing the bulk sciences with the numerous sensors and high-definition cameras they gifted her with. Seven instruments make the payload for this rover. Out of 60 considerations of different instrumental proposals they chose these:

PIXL, Planetary Instrument for X-Ray Lithochemistry, which is an X-ray fluorescence spectrometer that can identify the fine-scale elemental composition of the Martian surface.

RIMFAX, Radar Imager for Mars subsurface experiment, can penetrate the ground to image different densities, structural layers, buried regolith, meteorites, and detect underground pockets of water ice and salty brines.

MEDA, Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer, is a set of sensors that will measure wind speed, direction, temperature, pressure, relative humidity, radiation levels, as well as dust particle sizing, and shape documentation.

MOXIE, Mars Oxygen ISRU Experiment, uses a process called solid oxide electrolysis to take Martian atmospheric Carbon Dioxide and produce a small amount of pure Oxygen. This could lead to preparing the atmosphere for humans in the future or to make the fuel for return missions. If I had a favorite instrument to pick- this would be it because Earth would benefit as well.

SuperCam will provide imaging, chemical composition analysis, and mineralogy in the rocks and regolith from a distance. Two lasers and four spectrometers will allow it to remotely identify biosignatures and assess the past habitability of the planet.

The Mastcam-Z is a zoomable stereoscopic imaging system that uses cameras at different angles to capture and display 3D images or create an illusion of depth in a flat image. It allows Perseverance to see like a human does.

SHERLOC, or Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman and Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals, will detect organic compounds and extract mineralogy on a fine-scale level using an ultraviolet laser.

Additionally two microphones, the first-ever working microphones on Mars and more cameras to be used for engineering support during landing, driving, and collecting all of the samples for the advancement of human knowledge.

The leaps and bounds we have taken! Landing on Mars in one piece, fully functional, and ready to help us learn about how we came to be is absolutely FANTASTIC! The excitement was most definitely palpable during NASA's live-stream event and we even got Rick-Rolled by Rick Astley as he congratulated the team's epic landing in a post on Twitter.

Tears were shed and shrieks of happiness muffled by face masks.

Elated jumping up and down with fists in the air.

This is what we can do together.

Let's keep it going!!

Love and Light