NASA set to launch robotic rover to seek signs of past Martian life7 - National Post

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“This is unlike any robot that we’ve sent to Mars before because it has the purpose of astrobiology,” NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine told Reuters in an interview. “We are trying to find evidence of ancient life on another world.”

The rover will attempt for the first time to bring Martian rock samples back to Earth, collecting materials in cigar-sized capsules and leaving them scattered on the surface for retrieval by a future “fetch” rover. That conceptual rover is expected to launch the samples back into space to link up with other spacecraft for an eventual Earth homecoming around 2031.

Also aboard Perseverance is a four-pound (1.8 kg) autonomous helicopter called Ingenuity that is due to test powered flight on Mars for the first time. Bridenstine said he can imagine a day when NASA places a robot on Mars that can deploy perhaps a dozen different helicopters for exploration.

Since NASA’s first Mars rover Sojourner landed in 1997, the agency has sent two others – Spirit and Opportunity – that have revealed the geology of vast Martian plains and found evidence of past water formations, among other discoveries. NASA also has successfully sent three landers – Pathfinder, Phoenix, InSight.

“We know that we’re going to make discoveries with the Mars Perseverance rover that are going to make us ask a whole lot more questions, just like every previous discovery,” Bridenstine told Reuters.

The United States has plans to send astronauts to Mars in the 2030s under its Artemis program, which envisions using a return to the moon as a testing platform for human missions before making the bigger leap to Mars.

Perseverance will carry out an experiment to convert elements of the carbon dioxide-rich Martian atmosphere into propellant for future rockets launching off the planet’s surface, or to produce breathable oxygen for future astronauts.

“There’s a lot of things that we need to be able to develop and discover,” Bridenstine said, “so that when we get to Mars we can actually survive for long periods of time.”

(Reporting by Joey Roulette in Washington; Editing by Will Dunham)

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2020-07-29 21:04:11Z
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