ENG: Perseverance and Ingenuity Mission + Updates on Bob and Doug!
Hello everyone! Today I've got a short but exciting post about an upcoming launch just around the clock: the Mars Perseverance and Ingenuity mission! Let's take a look at these two pieces of engineering that are bound to land on Mars by February 2021!
JULY: WHY SO MANY MISSIONS???
Before we talk about this mission, I wanted to gently touch on this subject: July will have had three Mars missions just this month, but why is that?
Well, UAE, China, and NASA will all launch this month for many reasons, but the main one is orbital mechanics! About every 2 years, Earth and Mars are in a perfect position relative to each other that allows for successful Hohmann Orbital Transfers (HOTs). This does not mean that Mars missions are possible only every two years, as other maneuvers besides HOTs can be performed, but are much less fuel-efficient and overall more expensive.
THE PERSEVERANCE ROVER
Great, now let's talk about the Perseverance Rover: it received its named after a school competition, that took over 28,000 entries, took place (this is, by the way, how NASA usually names their rovers), and is the brand new vehicle that will hopefully drive around Mars next year. It is almost 3 meters long (pretty big, right?) and weighs about a ton. Shall we take a look at what this bad boy packs in its fuselage?
As you can see, Perseverance will pack radars, cameras - most of which have color - and other tools, such as drills, spectrometers, and even a device that produces oxygen!
A crucial and interesting difference between the Curiosity Rover and the brand new one is the logistics of drilling rock samples: in contrast to the previous vehicle, Perseverance will not analyze collected samples, but rather only store them in a mini-lab on the bottom. This allows for a bigger volume of the total sample amount possibly collected. How will these samples be brought back to Earth and analyzed, then? Well, that will happen on a future mission! Yes, ESA and NASA are planning to build another rover that will have the sole mission to collect the samples from Perseverance and later bring them back home with a small rocket. Launching from Mars is way easier task compared to doing so here at Earth, as the atmosphere in the Red Planet is considerably thinner than ours, which makes a smaller rocket sufficient for the job.
THE INGENUITY HELICOPTER
This is the other exciting thing about this mission: NASA is literally taking a helicopter to Mars! Yes, a helicopter. They are doing so to test the capabilities of flying on the Martian surface, which will probably be a challenge as the atmosphere is thinner, as previously stated.
LAUNCH VEHICLE
The Mars Perseverance Rover will launch inside the 5m long fairings of a ULA Atlas V-541, which is a beautiful rocket, here's a picture!
Here's another one!
UPDATES ON BOB AND DOUG
To finish up, here's an update on the DM-2 Crew: they are coming back with the flag! Departure from the I.S.S is scheduled to take place on August 1st, with splashdown the following day. All of this will be streamed live from SpaceX's and NASA's media websites/apps, so make sure to be there for it! Also, the Commercial Program Crew 2 has been defined! A funny fact is that among them is Bob's wife, who will be the pilot, so that's neat!
Well everyone, that's it for today! It was a little bit shorter than usual, just wanted to give a little update on the Aerospace world and shed some light on the awesome missions to come in this end-of-month!
Alright everyone, stay safe out there! Peace!
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