Perseverance Rover- Pre-Landing Details

The Perseverance Rover is the integral part of NASA’s Mars 2020 Mission. With a budget of more than 2.5 Billion, this mission will surely set new standards for future space exploration plans.

The Rover is set to touch down at the Jezero Crater, which scientists believe was home to an actual lake, Billions of years ago when Mars supposedly had liquid water on its surface.

As soon as you must have heard the word 'Water', you know very well that Perseverance will be always on the search for extinct or existing life forms on the Red Planet. Other than the 2 Viking Rovers, which landed on Mars in 1976, no other craft has carried out this task.

It will definitely be difficult for the Rover to itself search for signs of life on Mars, and that brings us to another major aim of this mission.

This is the first time that any lander/rover will be attempting a sample-return from the Martian Soil.

This, in simple words, means that this is the first time that a Martian soil sample would return to Earth, on board a Rover.

This will allow astro-biologists to study Mars' history in a far better way, than what a Rover could have done on it's own while staying on Mars.

The sample-return mission is planned to be carried out by 2031, by a cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA).

Ok, all this is fine, all rovers just self-drive across the Martian surface and do a few experiments.

But ever heard, or even imagined, a drone or a helicopter flying on any other planet than Earth?

Well, THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT NASA IS PLANNING TO DO!

Yes, for the first time, a rotorcraft will try flying in the Martian air. The name of the craft is Ingenuity, which is currently locked inside the belly of The Rover.

But of course, Perseverance will not be able to carry out these extraordinary experiments until it safely lands on Mars, on at 11:55PM KSA Time, Feb 18th.

The Rover is also the heaviest Rover to land on Mars, at 1,025 kgs. And, to add salt to the wound, Jezero crater is filled with irregular cliffs and boulders.

Hence, we are attempting to land the heaviest, biggest, most advanced, and the most complex rover, on the most dangerous and hazardous landing site ever!

So yeah, there is a slight chance that we might fail, but hopefully, HUMANITY WILL PERSEVERE!