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7 Minutes to Land on Mars: NASA's Perseverance Rover Will Attempt Most Dangerous Landing Yet

All landings on Mars are difficult, but NASA's Perseverance rover is attempting to touch down in the most challenging terrain on Mars ever targeted.

The intense entry, descent, and landing phase, known as EDL, begins when the spacecraft reaches the top of the Martian atmosphere. Engineers have referred to the time it takes to land on Mars as the "seven minutes of terror."

The Perseverance rover is set to land on the surface of Mars on February 18, 2021.


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Video (NASA/JPL) | Stream on YouTube
@EverythingScience | #Mars2020
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NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter: Attempting the First Powered Flight on Mars

NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter will make history's first attempt at powered flight on another planet. The agency's Mars 2020 Perseverance rover with Ingenuity attached to its belly, will land on Mars February 18.

As a technology demonstration, Ingenuity is testing a new capability for the first time: showing controlled flight is possible in the very thin Martian atmosphere. If successful, Ingenuity could lead to an aerial dimension to space exploration, aiding both robots and humans in the future.

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Video (NASA/JPL) | Stream on YouTube
@EverythingScience | #Mars2020
Mystery Lifeforms Have Been Found in The Hostile Darkness Beneath Antarctica
It's pitch dark, and temperatures are subzero; yet, when scientists drilled through an Antarctic ice shelf far from light or warmth, they found a seafloor boulder that's home to several species we may have never seen before.
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Two variants have merged into heavily mutated coronavirus

Two variants of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus that causes covid-19 have combined their genomes to form a heavily mutated hybrid version of the virus. The “recombination” event was discovered in a virus sample in California, provoking warnings that we may be poised to enter a new phase of the pandemic.

The hybrid virus is the result of recombination of the highly transmissible B.1.1.7 variant discovered in the UK and the B.1.429 variant that originated in California and which may be responsible for a recent wave of cases in Los Angeles because it carries a mutation making it resistant to some antibodies.


Article | #Covid19
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Mars 2020 Landing Timeline

Perseverance is the most sophisticated rover NASA has ever sent to the Red Planet and it will begin it's landing phase at 20:38 UTC tomorrow evening.

The intense entry, descent, and landing (EDL) phase begins when the spacecraft reaches the top of the Martian atmosphere, traveling at about 19,500 kph (12,100 mph).

EDL ends about seven minutes later, with the rover stationary on the Martian surface. Many engineers refer to the time it takes to land on Mars as the “seven minutes of terror.”

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Atmospheric Entry

10 minutes before entering the Martian atmosphere – the Mars 2020 spacecraft will shed the cruise stage that helped fly Perseverance and Ingenuity to Mars.

The spacecraft will manipulate its descent into Mars’ atmosphere using a technique called guided entry to reduce the size of the targeted ellipse-shaped landing area on Mars while compensating for variations in the density of the Martian atmosphere and drag on the vehicle.

During guided entry, small thrusters on the back of the aeroshell will adjust the angle and direction of lift, enabling the spacecraft to control how far downrange it is flying.

Source | #Mars2020
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New EDL Technologies

While all landings on Mars are difficult, Perseverance is landing in the most challenging terrain ever targeted. Jezero Crater is a 28-mile-wide (45-kilometer-wide) impact basin with an intriguing ancient river delta as well as steep cliffs, sand dunes, boulder fields, and smaller impact craters.

During EDL, Range Trigger will autonomously update the deployment time for the parachute based on navigation position.

It will calculate the spacecraft’s distance to the landing target and open the parachute at the ideal time for the spacecraft to hit its mark. The result: a smaller, more precise landing ellipse, or target landing area.

The landing ellipse for Perseverance is 10 times smaller in area than the Curiosity rover’s in 2012 and almost 300 times smaller than that of the first Mars rover, Sojourner, in 1997.

Source | #Mars2020
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The Mars 2020 spacecraft, with the Perseverance rover and the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter inside, lifted off from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Base on July 30, 2020, at 12:50 UTC.

Why did Perseverance launch in the summer of 2020? As Earth and Mars race around the Sun, with Earth on the inside track, Earth laps Mars about once every 26 months. Launch opportunities to Mars occur at the same frequency, when the planets are positioned so that a spacecraft launched from Earth will be on a relatively short track to Mars (taking on the order of months rather than years to arrive at Mars).

One priority for choosing this launch period and arrival date was to make sure Perseverance could land when NASA orbiters at Mars will be passing over the landing site. Such scheduling allows the orbiters to receive radio transmissions from the spacecraft carrying Perseverance during its descent through the atmosphere and landing.

Source | #Mars2020
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Confirmation of Landing

NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) will be flying overhead during Perseverance’s landing on Mars. If the communications relay system from Mars to Earth works as expected, MRO will receive telemetry (detailed engineering data) from the lander and then relay it to NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN) antennas on Earth. This will allow mission controllers to confirm the spacecraft has touched down at around 20:55 UTC.

MRO has been newly configured to send telemetry to Earth throughout the landing timeline. Perseverance will also be sending tones in the X-band frequency and an ultrahigh frequency (UHF) dial-tone-like carrier signal directly back to Earth.

The tones will enable the engineers to determine that the rover has completed some key milestones, and the carrier signal will enable engineers to determine that the spacecraft is still functioning.

Source | #Mars2020
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Perseverance Key Facts and Details

The Mars 2020/Perseverance rover is designed to better understand the geology of Mars and seek signs of ancient life. The mission will collect and store a set of rock and soil samples that could be returned to Earth in the future. It will also test new technology to benefit future robotic and human exploration of Mars. Read about the rover in the document below.

Article | #Mars2020
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Watch NASA's Live Stream starting at 19:15 UTC, February 18th. Perseverance will enter Mars' atmosphere at 20:48 UTC.

Watch a 360° view of the control centre

View the landing timeline here
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Use #Mars2020 to find all of our related posts from the past and in the future
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Perseverance: Surface Phase

The rover is expected to touch down in the Martian afternoon – at 3:53 p.m. local mean solar time (Mars time). Soon after, the rover’s computer switches from entry, descent, and landing mode to surface mode. This initiates a series of autonomous activities for the first Martian day on the surface of the Red Planet. Read more about those activities in the document below.

Article | #Mars2020
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