NASA’s Perseverance rover recently took a break from its Mars climbing expedition to investigate old ruins.
The car-sized Perseverance landed at the bottom of the 28-mile-wide (45 km) Jezero Crater in February 2021 to search for signs of past Martian life and collect dozens of samples for possible future return to Earth.
Perseverance has finished its work on the plains of Jezero and is currently expanding the western rim of the crater to explore new and exotic Martian landscapes. But late last month, the rover paused to admire the magnificent Jezero landscape and share it with its handlers on Earth.
Mission team members combined 44 photos taken by Perseverance on September 27 to create a mosaic featuring many of the landmarks explored by the rover.
“These images not only show us our past and present, but they also show us the biggest challenges to getting where we want to be in the future,” said Perseverance’s Rick, deputy project lead at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California. Welch said. said in a statement NASA shared new images on Monday (October 28).
“If you look at the right side of the mosaic, you start to understand what we are dealing with,” he added. “Mars didn’t want to make it easy for anyone to reach the top of this ridge.”
Perseverance began the climb in mid-August. The featured photo was taken when the mission team was about halfway to the western edge, near a point they called “Faraway Rock.” But the rover isn’t expected to reach the edge until early December. Because the road is quite difficult.
NASA officials said the ridge that Welch was referring to has a slope of about 20 degrees. It also has loose sand and dust on top of the brittle crust, making it slippery.
“Mars rovers have driven over steeper terrain and have driven over more slippery terrain, but this is the first time they have had to deal with both, and at this scale,” said Camden Miller of JPL, the planner or “driver” of Perseverance. spoke in the same statement about its mission.
“For every two steps Perseverance took, we were taking at least one step back,” added Miller, who also served as a driver for NASA’s Curiosity rover. He landed inside Mars’ Gale Crater in 2012 and is still going strong. “The rover planners saw this was trending towards a long and arduous task, so we got together and came up with a few options.”
These options included driving the six-wheeled Perseverance backwards, taking a “cross slope” approach with many switchbacks, and staying close to the northern edge of the slope. In this case, there may be larger, traction-enhancing rocks buried near the subsurface.
All three of these strategies have had some benefit, but the northern edge method appears to offer the most bang for the buck, so the rover team will prioritize it.
“That’s the plan right now, but we may have to change things down the road,” Miller said. “No other Mars mission has attempted to climb a mountain this large so quickly. The science team wants to get to the top of the crater rim as quickly as possible because of the scientific opportunities it presents. It’s up to our rover planners to figure it out for them. “There is a way to get you there.”
