The Perseverance rover will have full robotic arms. We are checking what he will do on Mars
The Perseverance rover will be launched towards Mars in just a few hours. It’s high time to get to know the vehicle itself and its mission in more detail.
This huge apparatus, equipped with a whole range of instruments and an advanced drilling system, is designed to help us answer the question of whether there was indeed life on Mars.
It is safe to say that Perseverance is one of the most ambitious missions ever carried out by NASA. Contrary to previous rovers, Perseverance will not only analyze Martian rocks with its miniature laboratory, but also prepare several dozen samples that, when packed, will be left behind on the surface of Mars.
These samples will be collected and delivered to Earth by another unmanned aircraft in the next decade. Thanks to this, scientists on Earth will be able to study them using the most modern research instruments in the best laboratories on Earth.
This entire operation, consisting of the Perseverance rover, but also of future robotic missions, is called the Mars Sample Return. Its purpose is to deliver uncontaminated fragments of Martian rock to Earth. It is on Earth that it will be possible to check exactly whether particularly interesting samples indicate whether there once was life on Mars or not.
If we want to confirm that there has ever been life on a planet other than Earth, it is unlikely that this can be done with the miniaturized laboratory that we can send there. For that, you need powerful terrestrial laboratories, says Kenneth Farley, a Perseverance rover project scientist and professor at Caltech.
Although the rover is the first element of the entire mission, it is one of the most difficult to implement. If all goes according to plan, Perseverance will pack several dozen samples of Martian rocks that will one day reach Earth. It is these samples that will be able to tell us if life ever arose on Mars, or if it has been just a planet devoid of any biology for almost 5 billion years.
This is a truly unique, unique opportunity to collect samples from a specific location on Mars, says Tanja Bosak, professor of geobiology at MIT and member of the Perseverance research team.
Searching for life on Mars
As early as 1976, NASA sent two landers Viking 1 and Viking 2 to Mars to search for signs of life. While both learned a great deal about the Red Planet, they did not provide any convincing evidence to Earth that life ever existed there.
Such results slightly cooled the hopes of scientists and engineers at NASA. Now, in retrospect, we know that Viking landers had no chance of confirming that life could have existed there, unless some Martian equivalent of a dog or a T-Rex had come out in front of the lander’s cameras. Only now do we know (and then we did not know) what to look for when looking for present or past life on another planet.
After the Vikings, space probes flew towards Mars, exploring the surface of the planet from orbit, and rovers that traveled on the surface and examined the rocks closely. This is how Mars has reappeared to us over the years. Thanks to the data collected in this way, scientists have learned that 3.5 billion years ago on Mars there were many lakes, rivers and seas, the atmosphere was dense, and the conditions there were much more like Earth than today. Liquid water is one of the most important elements of life on our planet. For this reason, many scientists began to wonder if there was life on Mars then.
Information from the newer Curiosity rover, which has been traversing the Gale crater on Mars for eight years, has further spurred scientists to search for life. Instruments installed on board quickly determined that the present Gale Crater was long ago filled with water – it was one huge lake.
At the time when this lake existed, the same lakes on Earth were not only conducive to life, but were full of it. We are dealing with very similar environments existing on two planets at the same time. We know that on one of these planets there was life in this environment. The question is whether the second is also, Farley wonders.
Now, for the new Perseverance rover, NASA has chosen one of the most promising places to search for traces of life on Mars. Jezero Crater is a place that scientists believe was once a lake into which a river flowed. The flowing water could deliver sediment and other minerals to the lake, which could be an ideal mixture for the formation and existence of various microorganisms.
With the help of the rover, we will take a close look at what looks to us from orbit as a very favorable environment for life. If there were microorganisms in this lake, they had perfect conditions for development there, especially along the shoreline of the lake, where, at least on Earth, there are the best conditions for life to flourish, says Ken Williford, assistant scientist for the Perseverace rover project at JPL.
We’re going to drill holes
When Perseverance is at the bottom of the crater, the search for the so-called biosygnatur. Such an indicator of biological activity can be rocks, minerals or structures formed by the division of living organisms. They can also be chemical compounds formed in biological processes or organic matter – carbon and hydrogen compounds that form the basis of all life on Earth. The discovery of at least one biosignature of this type would be a huge success, the discovery of many different types of biosignatures in one place would be a real hit.
Perseverance Rover – Equipment
The rover is equipped with seven instruments, most of which will be used to search for such traces. Among them are cameras, radar, laser and many more. In addition to them, there were also some additional instruments on board the rover. MOXIE, for example, will try to convert carbon dioxide from the Martian atmosphere into oxygen, a process that may one day be used by the first humans on Mars.
While the Ingenuity miniature helicopter is the most effective addition to the rover, scientists and engineers are most excited about the system that allows it to drill beneath the surface of Mars.
The rock sampling component of the mission is perhaps the most important part of the entire rover mission. The robotic arm will extend in front of the rover and rotate into the surface using one of the nine drills. The material from the well will then be packed into one of 43 titanium tubes that Perseverance will take with it to Mars. After the tube is filled, it will be transported inside the rover, where the second robotic arm will take precise photos of the sample, seal it hermetically and keep it for later
Says Williford.
Whole teams of scientists and engineers will decide where and when to drill. Although, of course, the initial plans already exist, it all depends on which part of the Jezero crater the rover will eventually land in. Only after landing, it will be possible to thoroughly analyze the surroundings and locate particularly interesting places. Scientists will be particularly interested in the carbonates visible from orbit along the edge of the crater. Likewise, equally interesting are the stromatolites, which on Earth form in shallow waters when cyanobacteria trap sediment particles and form layered rock formations. Similar formations on Mars would certainly make interesting drilling sites.
Each well decision will be preceded by days or even weeks of analyzes. Scientists will need to consider thousands of different factors in any decision of this type.
As part of the mission, the rover will have the task of collecting at least 20 samples of Martian matter, which one day will be able to be sent to Earth. Still, there are 43 sample containers on board, just in case.
We will wait a little longer for the samples from Mars. Very little.
At an appropriately advanced stage of the mission, scientists will decide to leave the samples on the surface of Mars. Perhaps they will lie in groups of one or two, or perhaps they will all lie side by side on some flat surface. Due to the fact that the containers are made of titanium, they will be able to withstand the low temperatures on Mars and possible dust storms, without the risk of losing the sample. Engineers believe that the samples in the containers will last up to 20 years without losing any of their scientific value.
This is crucial information, because we can wait a little longer for the mission to recover samples from the surface of Mars. NASA and ESA are trying to speed up the process as much as possible. Current plans include sending another rover that will take samples from the surface and transport them to the rocket, which will connect to the probe in orbit after launch. Only this probe will return to Earth with the samples. It’s an incredibly complicated mission (Elon Musk would definitely do it in a week, on Twitter), so scientists don’t expect samples even in ten years.
Still, if all goes well, the scientific value of this whole process will be immense. Once the samples reach Earth, scientists will divide them into tiny slices, thinner than a piece of paper, through which light can pass. The slices will then be so thin that we will be able to see very, very small structures the size of single cells. So far, it cannot be done on board a rover, but in a laboratory on Earth it is – adds Williford.
After today’s launch, the Perseverance rover will spend seven months in space. After this time, in mid-February 2021, it will still have to land safely on the surface of Mars. Such a landing is not an easy task. So far, this has only been achieved in eight missions. No wonder then that engineers say "seven minutes of terror" about entering the atmosphere. However, if Perseverance does land in full and begins work, whether it finds life there or not, it will tell us a lot about the nature of life in the solar system and the entire universe.
The key question to which we still do not know the answer is "is there life on other planets?" By answering this question, we will find out whether the origin of life on Earth was a kind of magical spark, a miracle that happens incredibly rarely, or is it a natural process that we have dealt with on Earth and on billions of other planets. This may be one of the most important information we can get about the universe. These questions may be answered within the next decade. We live in really exciting times.
Good luck, Perseverance!
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The Perseverance rover will have full robotic arms. We are checking what he will do on Mars
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