With all the craziness that 2020 and 2021 (so far) have brought to our daily lives, Thursday marked a rather momentous day, when NASA’s Perseverance rover was set to land on Mars. We wrote about it earlier this week, with some tips on how to watch coverage of the event from Mission Control at NASA.
In perhaps the most non-2020 happening in a while, the landing went off without a hitch. You may be thinking that’s kind of ho-hum… they landed… big deal. But, you might want to rethink that.
Beating the Odds
Looking back at all of the attempts to land (not crash) on Mars, apparently, all the missions combined had around a 40% success rate as we headed into Thursday’s scheduled landing attempt. Those are not great odds. Add in the pressure of over $2 billion being spent on the project to date, and a 6-month flight since launching from Cape Canaveral, FL on July 30, 2020, and you begin to get a sense of how much NASA and all of the scientists and engineers had on the line.
I watched the coverage live on NASA’s YouTube channel as it was happening, and I have to say it got my heart pumping. You could feel the tension and excitement from the people on camera and on-microphone at NASA. There were breathless moments, quiet whispers of ‘yes, yes’ as they received data from the lander as it reported the successful completion of one step or maneuver. Then there were clear moments of excitement when various more dangerous aspects of the landing were completed, before the absolute exaltation when they received confirmation of a successful touchdown.
It’s that much more amazing, when you realize that due to the delay in data being sent from Mars to the Earth, the lander is performing the entire landing under its own control and decision marking. Basically, if NASA received data about an issue, it would already be far too late to do anything about it by the time the data arrived, let alone the additional delay of sending new commands to the lander. So, it was like watching a plane land on automatic pilot, from 124 million miles away.
Wait, they Landed from a Crane?
Possibly the coolest aspect of the landing involved the use of a new design where the landing effectively included two very distinct parts or vehicles - the Skycrane and the Rover. The lander made entry into the atmosphere, later deployed parachutes and then used jets to slow its descent toward the surface. But, (and here’s the cool part for any sci-fi nerd, like myself) then the lander came to a hover above the surface and effectively separated into two parts with the Skycrane lowering the Rover by cables toward a soft landing. Next, the Skycrane detached itself and executed a perfect landing a bit away from the rover. If that doesn’t sound like science fiction, I don’t know what does.
But Wait, there’s More! Perseverance has a Helicopter?
One last awesome bit of technology. Along with the rover, there is a small drone-style helicopter called Inequity along for the ride that will take flight in the Mars atmosphere to run additional scientific experiments. This all has to be a literal dream for folks who love tech gadgets and space travel. So many exciting firsts with this mission.
While we’ve already seen some amazing photos from Perseverance, now the work really begins as it readies itself to begin driving around the Jezero Crater, searching for signs of past life. We’re going to be treated to all sorts of images (and sound!) from the red planet in the weeks and months ahead.
So, congratulations to NASA and everyone involved in the success of such an ambitious and risky mission!
