Perseverance Mars rover photographs its personal landing particles
On Mars, you will find a unique kind of “tumbleweed” rolling throughout the Martian plains.
These tumbleweeds aren’t plants – they are pieces of debris from the entry, descent, and landing (EDL) hardware from NASA’s Perseverance rover. Percy has been coming across several of these remnants, photographing them so that engineers can analyze them.
During its landing on February 18, 2021, a amount of hardware factors slowed the spacecraft’s speed from 12,500 mph (20,000 kph) when it initial entered the Martian environment to basically zero miles per hour when it was carefully positioned on the surface area by a sky crane. And that all occurred in just 7 minutes.
Related: A new 7 minutes of terror: See the nail-biting Mars landing levels of NASA’s Perseverance rover in this movie
The moment their employment were being total, EDL components like the parachute, backshell, warmth shield, and the sky crane ended up all jettisoned from the Perseverance rover, crashing into Mars some length away from the rover so as not to hurt it.
More than the past yr and a fifty percent, the Perseverance group has noticed and cataloged all over 50 % a dozen pieces of suspected EDL debris. The to start with piece was uncovered on April 16, 2022, when an unusually brilliant item was noticed in one particular of Perseverance’s panoramic Mastcam-Z pics. “The content was provided a descriptive title: ‘bright material’. No one realized what it was at the time, but maybe the rover would just take a nearer appear as it climbed up onto the delta in the coming months,” wrote NASA in a website put up (opens in new tab).
Many months afterwards, Perseverance made it to that spot in the delta, termed Hogwallow Flats. On June 12, 2022, it photographed the mysterious item, suspected to be a piece of multi-layer insulation (MLI) from the sky crane, manufactured of either Perforated Aluminized Kapton (PAK) or Mylar, that flutters in the wind like a flag. In the same area, the rover also caught a snapshot of a brief-shifting knotted ball of “string-like material.” That could be Dacron, a netting employed in thermal blankets, in accordance to the operations team.
Interestingly, Hogwallow Flats is more than 1.25 miles (two kilometers) away from the crash zones of Perseverance’s EDL components. “Hogwallow Flats seems to be a natural collecting issue for windblown EDL particles,” notes NASA.
Perseverance’s helicopter companion Ingenuity has gotten up close and private with some of the EDL debris. On April 19, 2022, Ingenuity flew above the crash website of Perseverance’s backshell and parachute, using substantial-resolution pictures of the particles.
These kinds of fields of intentionally discarded debris are not unusual on Mars, as landings on the Crimson World are generally considerably violent situations. Both of those the Option and Curiosity rovers have also photographed what is suspected to be their own EDL debris.
For now, landing spacecraft safely on Mars is the amount one particular priority, but as we proceed to plant rovers on the world, researchers will require to take into account the effects of such area junk. “Engineers coming up with EDL hardware for foreseeable future missions will will need to consider the effect (literally) of their designs on each Mars and on the mission requirements,” explained NASA.
Comply with Stefanie Waldek on Twitter @StefanieWaldek (opens in new tab). Stick to us on Twitter @Spacedotcom (opens in new tab) and on Fb (opens in new tab).
On Mars, you will find a unique kind of “tumbleweed” rolling throughout the Martian plains.
These tumbleweeds aren’t plants – they are pieces of debris from the entry, descent, and landing (EDL) hardware from NASA’s Perseverance rover. Percy has been coming across several of these remnants, photographing them so that engineers can analyze them.
During its landing on February 18, 2021, a amount of hardware factors slowed the spacecraft’s speed from 12,500 mph (20,000 kph) when it initial entered the Martian environment to basically zero miles per hour when it was carefully positioned on the surface area by a sky crane. And that all occurred in just 7 minutes.
Related: A new 7 minutes of terror: See the nail-biting Mars landing levels of NASA’s Perseverance rover in this movie
The moment their employment were being total, EDL components like the parachute, backshell, warmth shield, and the sky crane ended up all jettisoned from the Perseverance rover, crashing into Mars some length away from the rover so as not to hurt it.
More than the past yr and a fifty percent, the Perseverance group has noticed and cataloged all over 50 % a dozen pieces of suspected EDL debris. The to start with piece was uncovered on April 16, 2022, when an unusually brilliant item was noticed in one particular of Perseverance’s panoramic Mastcam-Z pics. “The content was provided a descriptive title: ‘bright material’. No one realized what it was at the time, but maybe the rover would just take a nearer appear as it climbed up onto the delta in the coming months,” wrote NASA in a website put up (opens in new tab).
Many months afterwards, Perseverance made it to that spot in the delta, termed Hogwallow Flats. On June 12, 2022, it photographed the mysterious item, suspected to be a piece of multi-layer insulation (MLI) from the sky crane, manufactured of either Perforated Aluminized Kapton (PAK) or Mylar, that flutters in the wind like a flag. In the same area, the rover also caught a snapshot of a brief-shifting knotted ball of “string-like material.” That could be Dacron, a netting employed in thermal blankets, in accordance to the operations team.
Interestingly, Hogwallow Flats is more than 1.25 miles (two kilometers) away from the crash zones of Perseverance’s EDL components. “Hogwallow Flats seems to be a natural collecting issue for windblown EDL particles,” notes NASA.
Perseverance’s helicopter companion Ingenuity has gotten up close and private with some of the EDL debris. On April 19, 2022, Ingenuity flew above the crash website of Perseverance’s backshell and parachute, using substantial-resolution pictures of the particles.
These kinds of fields of intentionally discarded debris are not unusual on Mars, as landings on the Crimson World are generally considerably violent situations. Both of those the Option and Curiosity rovers have also photographed what is suspected to be their own EDL debris.
For now, landing spacecraft safely on Mars is the amount one particular priority, but as we proceed to plant rovers on the world, researchers will require to take into account the effects of such area junk. “Engineers coming up with EDL hardware for foreseeable future missions will will need to consider the effect (literally) of their designs on each Mars and on the mission requirements,” explained NASA.
Comply with Stefanie Waldek on Twitter @StefanieWaldek (opens in new tab). Stick to us on Twitter @Spacedotcom (opens in new tab) and on Fb (opens in new tab).