What to expect on landing day

When it comes to space events, few things are as exciting as landing a plane on another planet. He is tense. it is exciting. It is high risk. On February 18, NASA’s persistent spacecraft plans to continue the landing on Mars, heralding a new era of exploration of the red planet.

While NASA has a lot of experience delivering machines to Mars (here’s a look at you, Curiosity And the insightThis time, don’t make it any easier. “Landing on Mars is difficult” NASA said. “Only about 40% of the missions the space agency has sent to Mars have been successful.”

It will be a wild ride. Here is what awaits you on your continuous landing day.

How to watch

NASA will broadcast the landing live. NASA’s TV broadcasts begin from the Mission Control Center on Thursday Feb 18 at 11:15 a.m. PDT. The Jizero crater is scheduled to land on Mars at around 12:30 pm PDT.

It wouldn’t be like launching a missile as we could see every detail as it happened. We’re getting comments and updates from NASA, views from the Mission Control Center, and hopefully you’ll get some pictures shortly after we land. It will be a must-have for space enthusiasts.

Perseverance resonates

We’ve been to Mars before. So why all the hype? The red planet borders our solar system. It is rocky like the ground. It has a long history of water. We can imagine living there someday.

“The people’s interest in this planet is extraordinary.” Alice Gorman – A space archaeologist and associate professor at Flinders University in Australia – he told CNET. Gorman sheds light on humankind’s search for life outside Earth and how Mars was a candidate for microbial life in its ancient past.

The rover also has something special: it is created with mechanical wheels and a “head” and “eyes”. “People feel about Rover because they are energetic and mobile,” Gorman said, comparing it to the parents’ sense of attachment. flow Passionate about the demise of NASA’s Opportunity Rover It shows how humans can communicate with the Mars Explorer. Stamina will be a New Mars Lover.

Seven minutes of horror

The arrival of Mars is always terrifying. NASA calls the EDL operation “Entry, Descent, and Descent.”

“While descending, the heat shield spacecraft first races through the thin Martian atmosphere at speeds of over 20,000 km / h.” NASA announced the landing. There’s a reason NASA described the landing as “seven minutes of terror.”

It will fire small bursts to keep the rover on its course on the potentially harsh journey through the atmosphere. The rover heat shield helps slow it down. At an altitude of about 11 kilometers, A. Ultrasonic canopy It will spread and stability will soon detach from its heat shield.

NASA gave a briefing with the professor. A detailed summary of the entire EDL sequence, Including the “Sky Lift” maneuver, which uses belts to reduce the vehicle’s final distance from the roof.

If all goes well, it will hold out on Mars. “The really difficult part is just landing, not breaking ground and using moving parts,” said Gorman. Perseverance is not alone in the journey. She also has a helicopter called Creativity under her belt. Creativity is released later in the mission.

Country experience

The mission is equipped with cameras and microphones to capture EDL operations so we can expect to see and hear the thrill of landing at some point. “It’s going to be the rough sounds of descending and surfacing,” Gorman said. “This is a completely different level of sensory interaction.”

It takes time to send data between Mars and Earth. For us at home, we can’t wait for the first image long after landing, but it could take a few days for NASA to fully share the visual and audio experience with the world.

The agency released a teaser for Access in December showing an animated and fast-paced version of the process. You get an idea of ​​how wild the rover is on another planet.

Gorman looks forward to taking photos of the Jezero Crater rover landing site. Here’s your first closer look at the landscapes of a region with a history in the waters. Persevering in the hope of searching this story and searching for evidence of life.

While the images, sounds, helicopters, and general science will be cause for celebration, there is the long-awaited question the mission may answer: Was Mars the home of microbial life? Gorman said, “It would be really cool if we went deeper into seeing if anything ever lived on Mars.”

Perseverance is our next big hope for finding signs of extraterrestrial life. It all starts to stick in the fall.

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