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Humans love shooting robots at Mars. Since 1960 there have been a total of 56 missions
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to the red rusty planet. Right now, there are six active satellites orbiting the planet,
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and down on the surface, the InSight lander and Curiosity rover are still going about
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their missions. They may have some company soon, as we've set our sights on Mars again
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with NASA's Perseverance rover due to launch later in the summer of 2020. So with so many
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missions to Mars already, what will Perseverance do that the previous 56 missions didn't?
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Well, hopefully get to Mars safely, of course. That's kind of step one for any extra-planetary
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excursion, but plenty of past missions failed by missing the planet, crashing into the planet,
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or just didn't get off our own planet entirely. Remember those 56 missions? Well fewer than
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half were successful. And of course, once Perseverance gets there, it has to land. Perseverance
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is very similar to Curiosity, so the famous seven-minutes-of-terror landing technique
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from 2012, including the sky crane final stage, will see action a second time. Reusing successful
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designs and spare hardware helps save money, time, and reduces risk. This time, though,
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some upgraded tech will make the landing more accurate than ever. The first is a range trigger,
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also known as a “smart chute.” Curiosity opened its parachute as soon as the heat shield
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slowed the craft to a desired speed, but Perseverance will deploy its chute earlier or later depending
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on how far it is from its landing target. The second improvement to Perseverance's
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landing is terrain-relative navigation. Using a bevy of onboard cameras to study the rapidly
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approaching surface and comparing it to maps of the landing site, the rover can divert
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itself from hazards and land in a safer area. All the additional cameras and a microphone
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onboard the rover mean engineers will get a better understanding of what's happening
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during a risky and crucial part of the mission, but they also mean that we, the general public,
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can be right there along for the ride. We are going to get to virtually strap in for
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the seven minutes of terror and I, for one, cannot wait! These improvements will shrink
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the target area the rover will land in by over 50%, down to an ellipse about 10 kilometers
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in diameter. With a shrunken landing area, the rover can land a couple of kilometers
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closer to its prime work site. That may not sound like much, but considering the slow
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and careful pace the rover has to traverse the planet, it could save as much as a year
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in commute time, effectively getting more useful time out of the mission's limited
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lifespan. The new rover will also feature updated software that allows for more autonomous
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driving and resource management, as well as improved wheels after Curiosity's deteriorated
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faster than expected. Hopefully “Perseverance” turns out to be a fitting name. There's
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another benefit to the precision landing, and it is a game-changer for Mars missions.
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Perseverance can finally study more interesting parts of Mars that were previously off limits
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because of perilous terrain. Places that, because of that terrain, may still harbor
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evidence of ancient microbial life. The mission's chosen landing site is Jezero Crater. While
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it's dry today, scientists believe it was once an ancient river delta, and thus could
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have supported life. Sniffing out biosignatures is Perseverance's main mission, and its
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onboard suite of tools reflects that. It has a larger turret on the end of its robotic
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arm, that houses a camera, two science instruments, and a drill to collect rock cores. And of
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course, scientists took this opportunity to give the instruments amusing acronyms, like
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MOXIE, the experiment for producing oxygen, and the SHERLOC UV laser that can detect organic
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compounds. Inside the rover's body is a workspace dedicated to caching those core
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samples in tubes, that the rover will then leave on the surface of Mars. “Why would
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it leave them behind?!” I hear you ask. Because Perseverance is actually the first
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of a new type of mission. Thanks to the landing techniques it will pioneer, future missions
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will be able to land close to this precious cache of samples, collect them, and return
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them to Earth where they can be studied in labs. Everything has been building to this.
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The lessons learned from failures, misses, crashes, the data from orbiters, the experience
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from past successful landings, all of it brings us to Perseverance. After 60 years of launches,
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humans may be just two more steps away from laying our hands on Martian soil, and knowing
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that we're not alone.
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Hey, remember Curiosity's wheels, and how they had that odd cutout pattern? It has a
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useful purpose, but it also spells out JPL in morse code. Yeah, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory
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has been stamping its name all over Mars for the last eight years.
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If you want to check out more on how Perseverance will try and make oxygen on Mars, check out
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this Focal Point episode on MOXIE. Be sure to subscribe to Seeker and thanks for watching.
