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105-411: Curiosity is a car-sized Mars rover exploring Gale crater and Mount Sharp on Mars as part of NASA 's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission. Curiosity was launched from Cape Canaveral (CCAFS) on November 26, 2011, at 15:02:00 UTC and landed on Aeolis Palus inside Gale crater on Mars on August 6, 2012, 05:17:57 UTC. The Bradbury Landing site was less than 2.4 km (1.5 mi) from

210-455: A Silica - cemented carbonate rock sample tube, two regolith sample tubes, an atmosphere sample tube, and three witness tubes. Before launch, 5 of the 43 tubes were designated "witness tubes" and filled with materials that would capture particulates in the ambient environment of Mars. Out of 43 tubes, 3 witness sample tubes will not be returned to Earth and will remain on rover as the sample canister will only have 30 tube slots. Further, 10 of

315-683: A United Launch Alliance Atlas V launch vehicle from Space Launch Complex 41 , at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS) in Florida . The rover took 29 weeks to travel to Mars and made its landing in Jezero Crater on February 18, 2021, to begin its science phase. After May 17, 2022, the rover will move uphill and examine rocks on the surface for evidence of past life on Mars . On its return downhill, it will collect sample rocks to be retrieved and examined by future expeditions. The successful landing of Perseverance in Jezero Crater

420-399: A gas chromatograph (GC) and a tunable laser spectrometer (TLS) . These instruments perform precision measurements of oxygen and carbon isotope ratios in carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) and methane (CH 4 ) in the atmosphere of Mars in order to distinguish between their geochemical or biological origin. The Dust Removal Tool (DRT) is a motorized, wire-bristle brush on the turret at

525-492: A percussion drill ; a brush; and mechanisms for scooping, sieving, and portioning samples of powdered rock and regolith. The diameter of the hole in a rock after drilling is 1.6 cm (0.63 in) and up to 5 cm (2.0 in) deep. The drill carries two spare bits. The rover's arm and turret system can place the APXS and MAHLI on their respective targets, and also obtain powdered sample from rock interiors, and deliver them to

630-553: A robotic arm , although Perseverance ' s arm is longer and stronger, measuring 2.1 m (6 ft 11 in). The arm hosts an elaborate rock-coring and sampling mechanism to store geologic samples from the Martian surface in sterile caching tubes. There is also a secondary arm hidden below the rover that helps store the chalk-sized samples. This arm is known as the Sample Handling Assembly (SHA), and

735-458: A staff-and-serpent symbol (a Greek symbol of medicine) was placed on the rover. The project manager, Matt Wallace, said he hoped that future generations going to Mars would be able to appreciate healthcare workers during 2020. One of the external plates of Perseverance includes a simplified representation of all previous NASA Martian rovers, Sojourner , Spirit , Opportunity , Curiosity , as well as Perseverance and Ingenuity , similar to

840-427: A 120° field of view and map the terrain at up to 3 m (9.8 ft) in front of the rover. This imagery safeguards against the rover crashing into unexpected obstacles, and works in tandem with software that allows the rover to make its own safety choices. MAHLI is a camera on the rover's robotic arm, and acquires microscopic images of rock and regolith. MAHLI can take true-color images at 1600×1200 pixels with

945-551: A 34 mm (1.3 in) focal length , a 15° field of view , and can yield 22 cm/pixel (8.7 in/pixel) scale at 1 km (0.62 mi). The other camera in the Mastcam is the Narrow Angle Camera (NAC; also Mastcam-100 and Mastcam-Right), which has a 100 mm (3.9 in) focal length, a 5.1° field of view, and can yield 7.4 cm/pixel (2.9 in/pixel) scale at 1 km (0.62 mi). Malin also developed

1050-726: A Remote Micro Imager (RMI) telescope. The ChemCam instrument suite was developed by the French CESR laboratory and the Los Alamos National Laboratory . The flight model of the mast unit was delivered from the French CNES to Los Alamos National Laboratory . The purpose of the LIBS instrument is to provide elemental compositions of rock and regolith, while the RMI gives ChemCam scientists high-resolution images of

1155-488: A computer brain. They are housed at the JPL Mars Yard for problem solving on simulated Mars terrain. The general sample analysis strategy begins with high-resolution cameras to look for features of interest. If a particular surface is of interest, Curiosity can vaporize a small portion of it with an infrared laser and examine the resulting spectra signature to query the rock's elemental composition. If that signature

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1260-417: A greater diameter, 52.5 cm (20.7 in), than Curiosity 's 50 cm (20 in) wheels. The aluminum wheels are covered with cleats for traction and curved titanium spokes for springy support. The heat shield for the rover was made out of phenolic-impregnated carbon ablator (PICA), to allow it to withstand up to 2,400 °F (1,320 °C) of heat. Like Curiosity , the rover includes

1365-650: A hemisphere-shape canopy, and each strip consisted of four pieces. Dr. Clark thus had 320 pieces with which to encode the message. He also included the GPS coordinates for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's headquarters in Pasadena, California (34°11’58” N 118°10’31” W). Clark said that only six people knew about the message before landing. The code was deciphered a few hours after the image was presented by Perseverance ' s team. "Dare mighty things"

1470-473: A landing ellipse devoid of hazards. The landing occurred in the late afternoon, with the first images taken at 15:53:58 on the mission clock (local mean solar time). The landing took place shortly after Mars passed through its northern vernal equinox ( Ls = 5.2°), at the start of the astronomical spring, the equivalent of the end of March on Earth. The parachute descent of the Perseverance rover

1575-501: A life-cycle cost of US$ 3.2 billion in 2020 dollars. By comparison, the 2021 Perseverance rover has a life-cycle cost of US$ 2.9 billion. Curiosity is 2.9 m (9 ft 6 in) long by 2.7 m (8 ft 10 in) wide by 2.2 m (7 ft 3 in) high, larger than Mars Exploration Rovers, which are 1.5 m (4 ft 11 in) long and have a mass of 174 kg (384 lb) including 6.8 kg (15 lb) of scientific instruments. In comparison to Pancam on

1680-412: A mass of 45 kg (99 lb) and uses 4.8 kg (11 lb) of plutonium-238 oxide as its power source. The radioactive decay of plutonium-238, which has a half-life of 87.7 years, gives off heat which is converted to electricity —approximately 110 watts at launch. This will decrease over time as its power source decays. The MMRTG charges two lithium-ion rechargeable batteries which power

1785-634: A pair of Mastcams with zoom lenses, but these were not included in the rover because of the time required to test the new hardware and the looming November 2011 launch date. However, the improved zoom version was selected to be incorporated on the Mars 2020 mission as Mastcam-Z . Each camera has eight gigabytes of flash memory, which is capable of storing over 5,500 raw images, and can apply real time lossless data compression . The cameras have an autofocus capability that allows them to focus on objects from 2.1 m (6 ft 11 in) to infinity. In addition to

1890-671: A report in July 2013 that the mission should "select and store a compelling suite of samples in a returnable cache." The Perseverance rover has four main science objectives that support the Mars Exploration Program 's science goals: In the first science campaign Perseverance performs an arching drive southward from its landing site to the Séítah unit to perform a "toe dip" into the unit to collect remote-sensing measurements of geologic targets. After that it will return to

1995-451: A resolution as high as 14.5 µm per pixel. MAHLI has an 18.3 to 21.3 mm (0.72 to 0.84 in) focal length and a 33.8–38.5° field of view. MAHLI has both white and ultraviolet Light-emitting diode (LED) illumination for imaging in darkness or fluorescence imaging. MAHLI also has mechanical focusing in a range from infinite to millimeter distances. This system can make some images with focus stacking processing. MAHLI can store either

2100-555: A rover mission. By the summer of 2012, a program that had been launching a mission to Mars every two years suddenly found itself with no missions approved after 2013. In 2011, the Planetary Science Decadal Survey , a report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine containing an influential set of recommendations made by the planetary science community, stated that

2205-543: Is a quote attributed to U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt and is the unofficial motto of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. It adorns many of the JPL center's walls. In December 2021, the NASA team announced a program to students who have persevered with academic challenges. Those nominated will be rewarded with a personal message beamed back from Mars by the Perseverance rover. March 5, 2024: NASA released images of transits of

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2310-850: Is intriguing, the rover uses its long arm to swing over a microscope and an X-ray spectrometer to take a closer look. If the specimen warrants further analysis, Curiosity can drill into the boulder and deliver a powdered sample to either the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) or the CheMin analytical laboratories inside the rover. The MastCam, Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI), and Mars Descent Imager (MARDI) cameras were developed by Malin Space Science Systems and they all share common design components, such as on-board digital image processing boxes, 1600 × 1200 charge-coupled device (CCDs), and an RGB Bayer pattern filter . In total,

2415-608: Is measured by the DE after each neutron pulse from the PNG. DAN was provided by the Russian Federal Space Agency and funded by Russia. MARDI is fixed to the lower front left corner of the body of Curiosity . During the descent to the Martian surface, MARDI took color images at 1600×1200 pixels with a 1.3-millisecond exposure time starting at distances of about 3.7 km (2.3 mi) to near 5 m (16 ft) from

2520-511: Is now a primary NASA objective. The Soviet probes, Mars 2 and Mars 3 , were physically tethered probes; Sojourner was dependent on the Mars Pathfinder base station for communication with Earth; Opportunity , Spirit and Curiosity were on their own. As of November 2023, Curiosity is still active, while Spirit , Opportunity , and Sojourner completed their missions before losing contact. On February 18, 2021, Perseverance ,

2625-542: Is now being used by Getty scientists to analyze a large collection of museum antiques and the Roman ruins of Herculaneum , Italy. Prior to the landing, NASA and Microsoft released Mars Rover Landing , a free downloadable game on Xbox Live that uses Kinect to capture body motions, which allows users to simulate the landing sequence. NASA gave the general public the opportunity from 2009 until 2011 to submit their names to be sent to Mars. More than 1.2 million people from

2730-664: Is planned to climb onto the Jezero Crater rim. In its progressive commissioning and tests, Perseverance made its first test drive on Mars on March 4, 2021. NASA released photographs of the rover's first wheel tracks on the Martian soil. In support of the NASA-ESA Mars Sample Return , rock, regolith ( Martian soil ), and atmosphere samples are being cached by Perseverance . As of October 2023, 27 out of 43 sample tubes have been filled, including 8 igneous rock samples, 12 sedimentary rock sample tubes,

2835-623: Is responsible for moving the soil samples to various stations within the Adaptive Caching Assembly (ACA) on the underside of the rover. These stations include volume assessment (measuring the length of sample), imaging, seal dispensing, and hermetic seal station, among others. Owing to the small space in which the SHA must operate, as well as load requirements during sealing activities, the Sample Caching System "is

2940-418: Is suspected of causing the problem. By December 9, 2016, driving and robotic arm operations were cleared to continue, but drilling remained suspended indefinitely. The Curiosity team continued to perform diagnostics and testing on the drill mechanism throughout 2017, and resumed drilling operations on May 22, 2018. Live video showing the first footage from the surface of Mars was available at NASA TV , during

3045-691: The China National Space Administration , is Zhurong (2021–2022). On January 24, 2016, NASA reported that then current studies on Mars by Opportunity and Curiosity would be searching for evidence of ancient life, including a biosphere based on autotrophic , chemotrophic or chemolithoautotrophic microorganisms , as well as ancient water, including fluvio-lacustrine environments ( plains related to ancient rivers or lakes ) that may have been habitable . The search for evidence of habitability , taphonomy (related to fossils ), and organic carbon on Mars

3150-676: The Curiosity team, said, "You guys are examples of American know-how and ingenuity. It's really an amazing accomplishment". ( Video (07:20) ) Scientists at the Getty Conservation Institute in Los Angeles, California, viewed the CheMin instrument aboard Curiosity as a potentially valuable means to examine ancient works of art without damaging them. Until recently, only a few instruments were available to determine

3255-587: The Jezero crater on Mars as part of NASA 's Mars 2020 mission. It was manufactured by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and launched on July 30, 2020, at 11:50 UTC . Confirmation that the rover successfully landed on Mars was received on February 18, 2021, at 20:55 UTC. As of 25 November 2024, Perseverance has been active on Mars for 1339 sols (1,376 Earth days , or 3 years, 9 months and 7 days) since its landing. Following

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3360-448: The Mars Exploration Program , the main scientific goals of the MSL mission are to help determine whether Mars could ever have supported life , as well as determining the role of water , and to study the climate and geology of Mars . The mission results will also help prepare for human exploration. To contribute to these goals, MSL has eight main scientific objectives: About one year into

3465-725: The Mars Exploration Rover mission. Curiosity comprised 23% of the mass of the 3,893 kg (8,583 lb) spacecraft at launch. The remaining mass was discarded in the process of transport and landing. The main box-like chassis forms the Warm Electronics Box (WEB). Curiosity landed in Quad 51 (nicknamed Yellowknife ) of Aeolis Palus in the crater Gale. The landing site coordinates are: 4°35′22″S 137°26′30″E  /  4.5895°S 137.4417°E  / -4.5895; 137.4417 . The location

3570-473: The Mars Pathfinder and the two Mars Exploration Rovers . CheMin is the Chemistry and Mineralogy X-ray powder diffraction and fluorescence instrument. CheMin is one of four spectrometers . It can identify and quantify the abundance of the minerals on Mars. It was developed by David Blake at NASA Ames Research Center and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory , and won the 2013 NASA Government Invention of

3675-448: The SAM and CheMin analyzers inside the rover. Since early 2015 the percussive mechanism in the drill that helps chisel into rock has had an intermittent electrical short. On December 1, 2016, the motor inside the drill caused a malfunction that prevented the rover from moving its robotic arm and driving to another location. The fault was isolated to the drill feed brake, and internal debris

3780-584: The VxWorks operating system , is written in C and is able to access 4 gigabytes of NAND non-volatile memory on a separate card. Perseverance relies on three antennas for telemetry , all of which are relayed through craft currently in orbit around Mars. The primary UHF antenna can send data from the rover at a maximum rate of two megabits per second. Two slower X-band antennas provide communications redundancy. NASA considered nearly 60 proposals for rover instrumentation. On July 31, 2014, NASA announced

3885-424: The " sky crane " system to a soft landing – wheels down – on the surface of Mars. After the rover touched down it waited 2 seconds to confirm that it was on solid ground then fired several pyrotechnic fasteners activating cable cutters on the bridle to free itself from the spacecraft descent stage. The descent stage then flew away to a crash landing, and the rover prepared itself to begin

3990-403: The 12-year-old girl from Kansas who gave Curiosity its name in an essay contest, writing in part that "curiosity is the passion that drives us through our everyday lives". On August 6, 2013, Curiosity audibly played " Happy Birthday to You " in honor of the one Earth year mark of its Martian landing, the first time for a song to be played on another planet. This was also the first time music

4095-569: The 43 tubes are left as backups at the Three Forks Sample Depot. In July 2024, NASA’s Perseverance rover discovered “leopard spots” on a reddish rock nicknamed " Cheyava Falls " in Mars’ Jezero Crater , that has some indications it may have hosted microbial life billions of years ago, but further research is needed. NASA plans to invest roughly US$ 2.75 billion in the project over 11 years, including US$ 2.2 billion for

4200-541: The Crater Floor Fractured Rough to collect the first core sample there. Passing by the Octavia E. Butler landing site concludes the first science campaign. The second campaign will include several months of travel towards the "Three Forks" where Perseverance can access geologic locations at the base of the ancient delta of Neretva river, as well as ascend the delta by driving up a valley wall to

4305-631: The Mars Exploration Rovers, the MastCam-34 has 1.25× higher spatial resolution and the MastCam-100 has 3.67× higher spatial resolution. Curiosity has an advanced payload of scientific equipment on Mars. It is the fourth NASA robotic rover sent to Mars since 1996. Previous successful Mars rovers are Sojourner from the Mars Pathfinder mission (1997), and Spirit (2004–2010) and Opportunity (2004–2018) rovers from

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4410-734: The Mars environment: humidity, pressure, temperatures, wind speeds, and ultraviolet radiation. It is a meteorological package that includes an ultraviolet sensor provided by the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science . The investigative team is led by Javier Gómez-Elvira of the Spanish Astrobiology Center and includes the Finnish Meteorological Institute as a partner. All sensors are located around three elements: two booms attached to

4515-637: The Martian surface, and testing oxygen production from the Martian atmosphere to prepare for future crewed missions . Despite the high-profile success of the Curiosity rover landing in August 2012, NASA's Mars Exploration Program was in a state of uncertainty in the early 2010s. Budget cuts forced NASA to pull out of a planned collaboration with the European Space Agency which included

4620-747: The NASA Goddard Space Flight Center , the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory the Laboratoire atmosphères, milieux, observations spatiales (LATMOS), the Laboratoire Inter-Universitaire des Systèmes Atmosphériques (LISA) (jointly operated by France's CNRS and Parisian universities), and Honeybee Robotics , along with many additional external partners. The three main instruments are a Quadrupole Mass Spectrometer (QMS),

4725-701: The Sun contain the phrase "Explore As One" written in Morse code . The plate was then mounted on the rover on March 26, 2020. Part of Perseverance ' s cargo is a geocaching trackable item viewable with the SHERLOC's WATSON camera. In 2016, NASA SHERLOC co-investigator Dr. Marc Fries — with help from his son Wyatt — was inspired by Geocaching's 2008 placement of a cache on the International Space Station to set out and try something similar with

4830-439: The area, is a likely place to discover evidence of perchlorate-reducing microbes, if such bacteria are living or were formerly living on Mars. A few days after landing, Perseverance released the first audio recorded on the surface of Mars, capturing the sound of Martian wind . During its travels on Mars, NASA scientists had observed around Sol 341 (February 4, 2022) that a small rock had dropped into one of its wheels while

4935-454: The ball of luminous plasma is done in the visible, near-UV and near-infrared ranges, between 240 nm and 800 nm. The first initial laser testing of the ChemCam by Curiosity on Mars was performed on a rock, N165 ("Coronation" rock) , near Bradbury Landing on August 19, 2012. The ChemCam team expects to take approximately one dozen compositional measurements of rocks per day. Using

5040-665: The center of the 154 km (96 mi) wide crater. Thus, it is believed that the rover may have the opportunity to study two billion years of Martian history in the sediments exposed in the mountain. Additionally, its landing site is near an alluvial fan , which is hypothesized to be the result of a flow of ground water, either before the deposition of the eroded sediments or else in relatively recent geologic history. According to NASA, an estimated 20,000 to 40,000 heat-resistant bacterial spores were on Curiosity at launch, and as many as 1,000 times that number may not have been counted. Previous NASA Mars rovers became active only after

5145-511: The center of the rover's touchdown target after a 560 million km (350 million mi) journey. Mission goals include an investigation of the Martian climate and geology , assessment of whether the selected field site inside Gale has ever offered environmental conditions favorable for microbial life (including investigation of the role of water ), and planetary habitability studies in preparation for human exploration . In December 2012, Curiosity 's two-year mission

5250-534: The composition without cutting out physical samples large enough to potentially damage the artifacts. CheMin directs a beam of X-rays at particles as small as 400 μm (0.016 in) and reads the radiation scattered back to determine the composition of the artifact in minutes. Engineers created a smaller, portable version named the X-Duetto . Fitting into a few briefcase -sized boxes, it can examine objects on site, while preserving their physical integrity. It

5355-634: The development and building of the hardware, US$ 243 million for launch services, and US$ 291 million for 2.5 years of mission operations. Adjusted for inflation, Perseverance is NASA's sixth-most expensive robotic planetary mission, though it is cheaper than its predecessor, Curiosity . Perseverance benefited from spare hardware and "build-to print" designs from the Curiosity mission, which helped reduce development costs and saved "probably tens of millions, if not 100 million dollars" according to Mars 2020 Deputy Chief Engineer Keith Comeaux. NASA's "Send Your Name to Mars" campaign invited people from around

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5460-504: The end of Curiosity 's arm. The DRT was first used on a rock target named Ekwir_1 on January 6, 2013. Honeybee Robotics built the DRT. The role of the Radiation assessment detector (RAD) instrument is to characterize the broad spectrum of radiation environment found inside the spacecraft during the cruise phase and while on Mars. These measurements have never been done before from

5565-458: The fixed RGBG Bayer pattern filter, each camera has an eight-position filter wheel. While the Bayer filter reduces visible light throughput, all three colors are mostly transparent at wavelengths longer than 700 nm, and have minimal effect on such infrared observations. ChemCam is a suite of two remote sensing instruments combined as one: a laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) and

5670-429: The front and two pairs in the back. They are used for autonomous hazard avoidance during rover drives and for safe positioning of the robotic arm on rocks and regolith. Each camera in a pair is hardlinked to one of two identical main computers for redundancy; only four out of the eight cameras are in use at any one time. The cameras use visible light to capture stereoscopic three-dimensional (3-D) imagery. The cameras have

5775-551: The future. JPL built a copy of the Perseverance ; a twin rover used for testing and problem solving, OPTIMISM (Operational Perseverance Twin for Integration of Mechanisms and Instruments Sent to Mars), a vehicle system test bed (VSTB). It is housed at the JPL Mars Yard and is used to test operational procedures and to aid in problem solving should any issues arise with Perseverance . The Perseverance rover lifted off successfully on July 30, 2020, at 11:50:00 UTC aboard

5880-468: The geocaching trackable code was carefully printed on a one-inch, polycarbonate glass disk serving as part of the rover's calibration target. It will serve as an optical target for the WATSON imager and a spectroscopic standard for the SHERLOC instrument. The disk is made of a prototype astronaut helmet visor material that will be tested for its potential use in crewed missions to Mars. Designs were approved by

5985-426: The ground, at a rate of four frames per second for about two minutes. MARDI has a pixel scale of 1.5 m (4 ft 11 in) at 2 km (1.2 mi) to 1.5 mm (0.059 in) at 2 m (6 ft 7 in) and has a 90° circular field of view. MARDI has eight gigabytes of internal buffer memory that is capable of storing over 4,000 raw images. MARDI imaging allowed the mapping of surrounding terrain and

6090-511: The inside of a spacecraft in interplanetary space. Its primary purpose is to determine the viability and shielding needs for potential human explorers, as well as to characterize the radiation environment on the surface of Mars, which it started doing immediately after MSL landed in August 2012. Funded by the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters and Germany's Space Agency ( DLR ), RAD

6195-482: The instruments during their mission in space. The science instruments are chosen and designed based on the science objectives and goals. The primary goal of the Spirit and Opportunity rovers was to investigate "the history of water on Mars". The four science goals of NASA's long-term Mars Exploration Program are: Perseverance (rover) Perseverance , is a car -sized Mars rover designed to explore

6300-419: The international community participated, and their names were etched into silicon using an electron-beam machine used for fabricating micro devices at JPL , and this plaque is now installed on the deck of Curiosity . In keeping with a 40-year tradition, a plaque with the signatures of President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden was also installed. Elsewhere on the rover is the autograph of Clara Ma,

6405-601: The late hours of August 6, 2012, PDT, including interviews with the mission team. The NASA website momentarily became unavailable from the overwhelming number of people visiting it, and a 13-minute NASA excerpt of the landings on its YouTube channel was halted an hour after the landing by an automated copyright takedown notice from Scripps Local News , which prevented access for several hours. Around 1,000 people gathered in New York City's Times Square , to watch NASA's live broadcast of Curiosity 's landing, as footage

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6510-461: The location of landing. JunoCam , built for the Juno spacecraft , is based on MARDI. The rover has a 2.1 m (6 ft 11 in) long robotic arm with a cross-shaped turret holding five devices that can spin through a 350° turning range. The arm makes use of three joints to extend it forward and to stow it again while driving. It has a mass of 30 kg (66 lb) and its diameter, including

6615-568: The loss of a rotor blade (imaged, by Perseverance , lying on the sand roughly 15 m (49 ft) distant from the upright body of Ingenuity ), causing NASA to retire it. Associate Administrator of NASA 's Science Mission Directorate, Thomas Zurbuchen selected the name Perseverance following a nationwide K-12 student "name the rover" contest that attracted more than 28,000 proposals. A seventh-grade student, Alexander Mather from Lake Braddock Secondary School in Burke, Virginia , submitted

6720-514: The mission leads at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), NASA Public Affairs, and NASA HQ, in addition to Groundspeak Geocaching HQ. Perseverance launched during the COVID-19 pandemic , which began to affect the mission planning in March 2020. To show appreciation for healthcare workers who helped during the pandemic, an 8 cm × 13 cm (3.1 in × 5.1 in) plate with

6825-430: The most complicated, most sophisticated mechanism that we have ever built, tested and readied for spaceflight." The combination of larger instruments, new sampling and caching system, and modified wheels makes Perseverance heavier, weighing 1,025 kg (2,260 lb) compared to Curiosity at 899 kg (1,982 lb)—a 14% increase. The rover's multi-mission radioisotope thermoelectric generator ( MMRTG ) has

6930-517: The name Curiosity following a nationwide student contest that attracted more than 9,000 proposals via the Internet and mail. A sixth-grade student from Kansas , 12-year-old Clara Ma from Sunflower Elementary School in Lenexa, Kansas , submitted the winning entry. As her prize, Ma won a trip to NASA 's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California , where she signed her name directly onto

7035-537: The newest American Mars rover, successfully landed. On May 14, 2021, China's Zhurong became the first non-American rover to successfully operate on Mars. Multiple rovers have been dispatched to Mars: Examples of instruments onboard landed rovers include: Circa the 2010s, NASA had established certain goals for the rover program. NASA distinguishes between "mission" objectives and "science" objectives. Mission objectives are related to progress in space technology and development processes. Science objectives are met by

7140-458: The northwest. The Perseverance design evolved from its predecessor, the Curiosity rover . The two rovers share a similar body plan, landing system, cruise stage, and power system, but the design was improved in several ways for Perseverance . Engineers designed the rover wheels to be more robust than Curiosity 's wheels, which had sustained some damage . Perseverance has thicker, more durable aluminum wheels, with reduced width and

7245-423: The raw images or do real time lossless predictive or JPEG compression. The calibration target for MAHLI includes color references, a metric bar graphic, a 1909 VDB Lincoln penny, and a stair-step pattern for depth calibration. The APXS instrument irradiates samples with alpha particles and maps the spectra of X-rays that are re-emitted for determining the elemental composition of samples. Curiosity 's APXS

7350-512: The rover as it was being assembled. Ma wrote in her winning essay: Curiosity is an everlasting flame that burns in everyone's mind. It makes me get out of bed in the morning and wonder what surprises life will throw at me that day. Curiosity is such a powerful force. Without it, we wouldn't be who we are today. Curiosity is the passion that drives us through our everyday lives. We have become explorers and scientists with our need to ask questions and to wonder. Adjusted for inflation, Curiosity has

7455-525: The rover carries 17 cameras: HazCams (8), NavCams (4), MastCams (2), MAHLI (1), MARDI (1), and ChemCam (1). The Mastcam system provides multiple spectra and true-color imaging with two cameras. The cameras can take true-color images at 1600×1200 pixels and up to 10 frames per second hardware-compressed video at 720p (1280×720). One Mastcam camera is the Medium Angle Camera (MAC; also referred to as Mastcam-34 and Mastcam-Left), which has

7560-420: The rover mission. After floating the idea around mission management, it eventually reached NASA scientist Francis McCubbin, who would join the SHERLOC instrument team as a collaborator to move the project forward. The Geocaching inclusion was scaled-down to a trackable item that players could search for from NASA camera views and then log on to the site. In a manner similar to the "Send Your Name to Mars" campaign,

7665-462: The rover picked up another pet rock named "Dwayne". It is planned for Perseverance to visit the bottom and upper parts of the 3.4 to 3.8 billion-year-old Neretva Vallis delta, the smooth and etched parts of the Jezero Crater floor deposits interpreted as volcanic ash or aeolian airfall deposits, emplaced before the formation of the delta; the ancient shoreline covered with Transverse Aeolian Ridges (dunes) and mass wasting deposits, and finally, it

7770-481: The rover was studying the Máaz rock formation. The rock was visible from one of the hazard avoidance cameras, and was determined not to be harmful to the rover's mission. The rock has since stayed on Perseverance ' s wheel for around 427 sols (439 days) as the rover traveled over 6 miles (9.7 km) on the martian surface. NASA deemed that Perseverance had adopted a pet rock for its journey. Later, by May 2024,

7875-627: The rover's activities, and must be recharged periodically. Unlike solar panels , the MMRTG provides engineers with significant flexibility in operating the rover's instruments even at night, during dust storms , and through winter. The rover's computer uses the BAE Systems RAD750 radiation-hardened single board computer based on a ruggedized PowerPC G3 microprocessor (PowerPC 750) . The computer contains 128 megabytes of volatile DRAM , and runs at 133 MHz. The flight software runs on

7980-849: The rover's arrival, NASA named the landing site Octavia E. Butler Landing . Perseverance has a similar design to its predecessor rover, Curiosity , although it was moderately upgraded. It carries seven primary payload instruments, nineteen cameras, and two microphones. The rover also carried the mini-helicopter Ingenuity to Mars, an experimental technology testbed that made the first powered aircraft flight on another planet on April 19, 2021. On January 18, 2024 (UTC), it made its 72nd and final flight , suffering damage on landing to its rotor blades, possibly all four, causing NASA to retire it. The rover's goals include identifying ancient Martian environments capable of supporting life, seeking out evidence of former microbial life existing in those environments, collecting rock and soil samples to store on

8085-613: The rover's mast, the Ultraviolet Sensor (UVS) assembly located on the rover top deck, and the Instrument Control Unit (ICU) inside the rover body. REMS provides new clues about the Martian general circulation, micro scale weather systems, local hydrological cycle, destructive potential of UV radiation, and subsurface habitability based on ground-atmosphere interaction. The rover has four pairs of black and white navigation cameras called hazcams , two pairs in

8190-506: The same collection optics, the RMI provides context images of the LIBS analysis spots. The RMI resolves 1 mm (0.039 in) objects at 10 m (33 ft) distance, and has a field of view covering 20 cm (7.9 in) at that distance. The rover has two pairs of black and white navigation cameras mounted on the mast to support ground navigation. The cameras have a 45° angle of view and use visible light to capture stereoscopic 3-D imagery . REMS comprises instruments to measure

8295-469: The sampling areas of the rocks and regolith that LIBS targets. The LIBS instrument can target a rock or regolith sample up to 7 m (23 ft) away, vaporizing a small amount of it with about 50 to 75 5-nanosecond pulses from a 1067 nm infrared laser and then observes the spectrum of the light emitted by the vaporized rock. ChemCam has the ability to record up to 6,144 different wavelengths of ultraviolet , visible , and infrared light. Detection of

8400-407: The science portion of the mission. As of August 16, 2024, the rover has driven 32.12 km (19.96 mi) from its landing site over 4255 sols (Martian days). Curiosity has two full sized, vehicle system test beds (VSTB), a twin rover used for testing and problem solving, MAGGIE rover (Mars Automated Giant Gizmo for Integrated Engineering) with a computer brain and a Scarecrow rover without

8505-463: The seven instruments that would make up the payload for the rover: There are additional cameras and two audio microphones (the first working microphones on Mars), that will be used for engineering support during landing, driving, and collecting samples. For a full look at Perseverance ' s components see Learn About the Rover . The Ingenuity helicopter, powered by solar-charged batteries,

8610-458: The southeast, with the RTG on the back of the vehicle pointing northwest. The descent stage (" sky crane "), parachute and heat shield all came to rest within 1.5 km of the rover (see satellite image). Having come within sixteen feet (~5 meters) of its target, the landing was more accurate than any previous Mars landing; a feat enabled by the experience gained from Curiosity ' s landing and

8715-520: The spirit and insight to explore the Moon, Mars, and beyond. But, if rovers are to be the qualities of us as a race, we missed the most important thing. Perseverance. We as humans evolved as creatures who could learn to adapt to any situation, no matter how harsh. We are a species of explorers, and we will meet many setbacks on the way to Mars. However, we can persevere. We, not as a nation but as humans, will not give up. The human race will always persevere into

8820-562: The success of the Curiosity rover and in response to the recommendations of the decadal survey, NASA announced its intent to launch a new Mars rover mission by 2020 at the American Geophysical Union conference in December 2012. Though initially hesitant to commit to an ambitious sample-caching capability (and subsequent follow-on missions), a NASA-convened science definition team for the Mars 2020 project released

8925-435: The successful entry, descent and landing on the Martian surface. Curiosity , on the other hand, was active when it touched down on the surface of Mars, employing the rover suspension system for the final set-down. Curiosity transformed from its stowed flight configuration to a landing configuration while the MSL spacecraft simultaneously lowered it beneath the spacecraft descent stage with a 20 m (66 ft) tether from

9030-546: The surface mission, and having assessed that ancient Mars could have been hospitable to microbial life, the MSL mission objectives evolved to developing predictive models for the preservation process of organic compounds and biomolecules ; a branch of paleontology called taphonomy . The region it is set to explore has been compared to the Four Corners region of the North American west . A NASA panel selected

9135-768: The tools mounted on it, is about 60 cm (24 in). It was designed, built, and tested by MDA US Systems , building upon their prior robotic arm work on the Mars Surveyor 2001 Lander , the Phoenix lander, and the two Mars Exploration Rovers , Spirit and Opportunity . Two of the five devices are in-situ or contact instruments known as the X-ray spectrometer (APXS), and the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI camera). The remaining three are associated with sample acquisition and sample preparation functions:

9240-427: The top priority of NASA's planetary exploration program in the decade between 2013 and 2022 should be to begin a NASA-ESA Mars Sample Return campaign, a four-mission project to cache, retrieve, launch, and safely return samples of the Martian surface to Earth. The report stated that NASA should invest in a sample-caching rover as the first step in this effort, with the goal of keeping costs under US$ 2.5 billion. After

9345-404: The trend of automobile window decals used to show a family's makeup. The orange-and-white parachute used to land the rover on Mars contained a coded message that was deciphered by Twitter users. NASA's systems engineer Ian Clark used binary code to hide the message "dare mighty things" in the parachute color pattern. The 70-foot-wide (21 m) parachute consisted of 80 strips of fabric that form

9450-581: The use of new steering technology. One such new technology is Terrain Relative Navigation (TRN), a technique in which the rover compares images of the surface taken during its descent with reference maps, allowing it to make last minute adjustments to its course. The rover also uses the images to select a safe landing site at the last minute, allowing it to land in relatively unhazardous terrain. This enables it to land much closer to its science objectives than previous missions, which all had to use

9555-507: The winning entry at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory . In addition to the honor of naming the rover, Mather and his family were invited to NASA's Kennedy Space Center to watch the rover's July 2020 launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS) in Florida . Mather wrote in his winning essay: Curiosity . InSight . Spirit . Opportunity . If you think about it, all of these names of past Mars rovers are qualities we possess as humans. We are always curious, and seek opportunity. We have

9660-422: The world to submit their names to travel aboard the agency's next rover to Mars. 10,932,295 names were submitted. The names were etched by an electron beam onto three fingernail-sized silicon chips, along with the essays of the 155 finalists in NASA's "Name the Rover" contest. The three chips share space on an anodized plate with a laser engraved graphic representing Earth, Mars, and the Sun. The rays emanating from

9765-454: The year award. The rover can drill samples from rocks and the resulting fine powder is poured into the instrument via a sample inlet tube on the top of the vehicle. A beam of X-rays is then directed at the powder and the crystal structure of the minerals deflects it at characteristic angles, allowing scientists to identify the minerals being analyzed. On October 17, 2012, at " Rocknest ", the first X-ray diffraction analysis of Martian regolith

9870-436: Was announced at 20:55 UTC on February 18, 2021, the signal from Mars taking 11 minutes to arrive at Earth. The rover touched down at 18°26′41″N 77°27′03″E  /  18.4446°N 77.4509°E  / 18.4446; 77.4509 , roughly 1 km (0.62 mi) southeast of the center of its 7.7 km × 6.6 km (4.8 mi × 4.1 mi) wide landing ellipse. It came down pointed almost directly to

9975-596: Was awarded the 2012 Robert J. Collier Trophy by the National Aeronautic Association "In recognition of the extraordinary achievements of successfully landing Curiosity on Mars, advancing the nation's technological and engineering capabilities, and significantly improving humanity's understanding of ancient Martian habitable environments." Curiosity 's rover design serves as the basis for NASA's 2021 Perseverance mission , which carries different scientific instruments. As established by

10080-412: Was being shown on the giant screen. Bobak Ferdowsi , Flight Director for the landing, became an Internet meme and attained Twitter celebrity status, with 45,000 new followers subscribing to his Twitter account, due to his Mohawk hairstyle with yellow stars that he wore during the televised broadcast. On August 13, 2012, U.S. President Barack Obama , calling from aboard Air Force One to congratulate

10185-441: Was developed by Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) and the extraterrestrial physics group at Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel , Germany. The DAN instrument employs a neutron source and detector for measuring the quantity and depth of hydrogen or ice and water at or near the Martian surface. The instrument consists of the detector element (DE) and a 14.1 MeV pulsing neutron generator (PNG). The die-away time of neutrons

10290-814: Was developed by the Canadian Space Agency (CSA). MacDonald Dettwiler (MDA) , the Canadian aerospace company that built the Canadarm and RADARSAT , were responsible for the engineering design and building of the APXS. The APXS science team includes members from the University of Guelph , the University of New Brunswick , the University of Western Ontario , NASA , the University of California, San Diego and Cornell University . The APXS instrument takes advantage of particle-induced X-ray emission (PIXE) and X-ray fluorescence , previously exploited by

10395-512: Was extended indefinitely, and on August 5, 2017, NASA celebrated the fifth anniversary of the Curiosity rover landing. On August 6, 2022, a detailed overview of accomplishments by the Curiosity rover for the last ten years was reported. The rover is still operational, and as of 28 November 2024, Curiosity has been active on Mars for 4377 sols (4497 total days ; 12 years, 114 days ) since its landing (see current status ). The NASA/JPL Mars Science Laboratory/ Curiosity Project Team

10500-459: Was named Bradbury Landing on August 22, 2012, in honor of science fiction author Ray Bradbury . Gale, an estimated 3.5 to 3.8 billion-year-old impact crater, is hypothesized to have first been gradually filled in by sediments ; first water-deposited, and then wind-deposited, possibly until it was completely covered. Wind erosion then scoured out the sediments, leaving an isolated 5.5 km (3.4 mi) mountain, Aeolis Mons ("Mount Sharp"), at

10605-526: Was performed. The results revealed the presence of several minerals, including feldspar , pyroxenes and olivine , and suggested that the Martian regolith in the sample was similar to the "weathered basaltic soils " of Hawaiian volcanoes . The paragonetic tephra from a Hawaiian cinder cone has been mined to create Martian regolith simulant for researchers to use since 1998. The SAM instrument suite analyzes organics and gases from both atmospheric and solid samples. It consists of instruments developed by

10710-588: Was photographed by the HiRISE high-resolution camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). Jezero Crater is a paleolake basin. It was selected as the landing site for this mission in part because paleolake basins tend to contain perchlorates . Astrobiologist Dr. Kennda Lynch's work in analog environments on Earth suggests that the composition of the crater, including the bottomset deposits accumulated from three different sources in

10815-419: Was sent to Mars in the same bundle with Perseverance . With a mass of 1.8 kg (4.0 lb), the helicopter demonstrated the reality of flight in the rarefied Martian atmosphere and the potential usefulness of aerial scouting for rover missions. It carried two cameras but no scientific instruments and communicated with Earth via a base station onboard Perseverance . Its pre-launch experimental test plan

10920-495: Was three flights in 45 days, but it far exceeded expectations and made 72 flights in nearly three years. After its first few flights, it made incrementally more ambitious ones, several of which were recorded by Perseverance ' s cameras. The first flight was April 19, 2021, at 07:15 UTC, with confirmation from data reception at 10:15 UTC. It was the first powered flight by any aircraft on another planet. On January 18, 2024 (UTC), it made its 72nd and final flight , suffering

11025-513: Was transmitted between two planets. Mars rover As of May 2021 , there have been six successful robotically operated Mars rovers; the first five, managed by the American NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory , were (by date of Mars landing): Sojourner (1997), Spirit (2004–2010), Opportunity (2004–2018), Curiosity (2012–present), and Perseverance (2021–present). The sixth, managed by

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