Perseverance: what is it?

Perseverance (Mars 2020 mission) is a martian rover of the Nasa which is a continuation of Curiosity. It was launched on July 30, 2020, inside a window launch site which opened on July 17 and closed on August 5. the rover has landed on February 18, 2021 in the Jezero crater, a 45-kilometer-wide impact basin that a river filled with water liquid 3.5 billion years ago. Today dried up, this old delta was obviously not chosen at random: the mission team is convinced that this crater is home to many fossils of microorganismsif they existed of course.

Perseverance’s main objectives are the direct search for signs of past microbial life, to collect samples that will be recovered by another mission, and to prepare for the arrival of a first manned mission on the Red Planet. At the end of its initial mission, the American rover will reach Midway, a site that also has an environment of interest for exobiology and which offers great geological diversity.

The choice of Perseverance instruments takes into account Curiosity’s advances

Unlike Curiosity, whose mission consisted, in particular, in demonstrating thehabitability from its landing site, Perseverance aims to find strong clues of past life forms. For this, it carries seven scientific instruments selected from the 58 proposals received by NASA, including SuperCam, provided by Cnes. This instrument is designed to determine the chemical and organic composition of rock samples in order to highlight possible biosignatures and traces of past life on the surface of Mars.

This mission will also contribute to advancing our knowledge of the possibilities for future human explorers to use the natural resources available on the surface of the Red Planet. For this, it embeds a small resource usage unit in situ who will attempt to produceoxygen from the carbon dioxide present in themartian atmosphere.

Perseverance also embeds a camera system with new functions on Mars, such as the ability to zoom inside part of the image. On board is a spectrometer X-ray fluorescence with a high resolution imager resolution and, for the first time, an ultraviolet Raman spectrometer (SuperCam). Finally, a ground-penetrating radar, capable of centimeter resolution of the geological structure of the subsoil, is also present on board the rover. The rover also carries two microphones, including one – made by Isae-Supaéro – which should, for the first time, let us hear the sounds of the planet Mars.

With this mission, the exploration of the planet Mars will also be done by the tunes ! Indeed, to the seven scientific instruments on board the rover is added the drone-helicopter Ingenuity. This little helicopter experimental must demonstrate the usefulness and interest of having an aerial vehicle in addition to a rover or a landerwith probable future more ambitious air projects.

This mission also kicks off the Martian sample return mission of NASA and ESA which will take place in several stages and will be spread over ten years. As part of this ambitious mission, Perseverance will have the task of collecting several tens of grams and placing them in 36 tubes which will be hermetically sealed. The rover has 43 tubes. If all goes as planned, they will be recovered by the end of the decade and sent to Earth in 2030.