# Perseverance rover on Mars (was: Mars lander set for Feb 18th landing) **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [February 2, 2021, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/perseverance-rover-on-mars-was-mars-lander-set-for-feb-18th-landing/932068 "2021-02-02T17:56:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2021, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/perseverance-rover-on-mars-was-mars-lander-set-for-feb-18th-landing/932068/81 "2021-02-19T18:27:33Z")
Thanks! They don’t seem to have posted that on their main site yet. There’s likely to be more soon, possibly even video by Monday. In many of these pics, Percy looks somewhat like a toy. But here are its specs: it’s about 10 feet long (not including the arm), 9 feet wide, and 7 feet tall (about 3 meters long, 2.7 meters wide, and 2.2 meters tall). It weighs 2,260 pounds (1,025 kilograms), a little less than a Volkswagen Jetta. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2021, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/perseverance-rover-on-mars-was-mars-lander-set-for-feb-18th-landing/932068/82 "2021-02-19T18:29:11Z")
I just realized that when you Google anything related to Perseverance the screen fills with fireworks! ---
**Author:** ![N9IWP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/n9iwp/32/3154_2.png) [@N9IWP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/N9IWP)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2021, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/perseverance-rover-on-mars-was-mars-lander-set-for-feb-18th-landing/932068/83 "2021-02-19T18:33:28Z")
Some new pix on twitter: [https://twitter.com/NASAPersevere/](https://twitter.com/NASAPersevere/) ex: > Brian ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2021, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/perseverance-rover-on-mars-was-mars-lander-set-for-feb-18th-landing/932068/84 "2021-02-19T18:48:18Z")
Here’s a good schematic of the entire landing sequence: [![](https://mars.nasa.gov//imgs/mars2020/edlprofile.jpg) ](https://mars.nasa.gov//imgs/mars2020/edlprofile.jpg) I think it’s fitting that the backshell + heat shield unit as it comes down through the atmosphere looks very much like the classic idea of a flying saucer. Any Martians who saw this thing coming down must have been scared shitless! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![snowthx](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowthx/32/10660_2.png) [@snowthx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snowthx)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2021, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/perseverance-rover-on-mars-was-mars-lander-set-for-feb-18th-landing/932068/85 "2021-02-19T19:19:31Z")
Thanks, **wolfpup** , for the graphic! My question: the “Fly Away” - where does it go? Is it expected to just fly a safe distance away and then just crash? ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2021, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/perseverance-rover-on-mars-was-mars-lander-set-for-feb-18th-landing/932068/86 "2021-02-19T19:45:07Z")
Sent to me by a friend who’s a proud Brown alum: > **[Mars rover touches down at Brown-discovered landing site](https://www.brown.edu/news/2021-02-18/mars)** > > The Perseverance rover will look for signs of ancient life in Jezero crater, a spot Brown researchers have studied for years and championed during the landing site-selection process. ---
**Author:** ![N9IWP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/n9iwp/32/3154_2.png) [@N9IWP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/N9IWP)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2021, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/perseverance-rover-on-mars-was-mars-lander-set-for-feb-18th-landing/932068/87 "2021-02-19T20:28:02Z")
Press conference (I didn’t catch it live). Has pic of capsule + parachute at 11:35 [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/Xz-Id5ZNopM/maxresdefault.jpg "What’s Next for Perseverance Mars Rover? Sol 1 Press Conference") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xz-Id5ZNopM) Brian ---
**Author:** ![N9IWP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/n9iwp/32/3154_2.png) [@N9IWP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/N9IWP)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2021, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/perseverance-rover-on-mars-was-mars-lander-set-for-feb-18th-landing/932068/88 "2021-02-19T20:40:31Z")
Some more pix, available at [https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/multimedia/images/](https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/multimedia/images/) [https://mars.nasa.gov/resources/25610/hirise-captured-perseverance-during-descent-to-mars/](https://mars.nasa.gov/resources/25610/hirise-captured-perseverance-during-descent-to-mars/) > **[Perseverance's First Full-Color Look at Mars – NASA Mars Exploration](https://mars.nasa.gov/resources/25612/perseverances-first-full-color-look-at-mars/)** > > This is the first high-resolution, color image to be sent back by the Hazard Cameras (Hazcams) on the underside NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover after its landing on Feb. 18, 2021.  > **[Perseverance's Big Wheel – NASA Mars Exploration](https://mars.nasa.gov/resources/25611/perseverances-big-wheel/)** > > This high-resolution image shows one of the six wheels aboard NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover, which landed on Feb.18, 2021. The image was taken by one of Perseverance’s color Hazard Cameras (Hazcams). Brian ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2021, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/perseverance-rover-on-mars-was-mars-lander-set-for-feb-18th-landing/932068/89 "2021-02-19T21:15:32Z")
> [@snowthx](#): > > My question: the “Fly Away” - where does it go? Is it expected to just fly a safe distance away and then just crash? Precisely that. It would be a major bummer if the landing rockets/skycrane crashed on top of the rover. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2021, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/perseverance-rover-on-mars-was-mars-lander-set-for-feb-18th-landing/932068/90 "2021-02-19T21:47:47Z")
> [@N9IWP](#): > > This is the first high-resolution, color image to be sent back by the Hazard Cameras (Hazcams) I think I see a hazard! 😲 [![](https://i.imgur.com/YhDIaDI.jpg) ](https://i.imgur.com/YhDIaDI.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2021, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/perseverance-rover-on-mars-was-mars-lander-set-for-feb-18th-landing/932068/91 "2021-02-20T01:15:10Z")
Cost of Perseverance, in case any one happens to be interested: | Spacecraft Development | $2.2 billion | | --- | --- | | Launch Services (Atlas V 541) | $243 million | | Prime Mission Operations (2 years) | $300 million | | Total | **$2.725 billion** | (Doesn’t include the separate cost of the Ingenuity helicopter, $80 million build, $5 million for operation.) ---
**Author:** ![wolfstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/d6d6ee/32.png) [@wolfstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfstu)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2021, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/perseverance-rover-on-mars-was-mars-lander-set-for-feb-18th-landing/932068/92 "2021-02-20T12:46:41Z")
The discussion to this point has pretty much come to the correct understanding of the sample caching and sample return plan, but just to be sure: 1. Perseverance carries a Sample Caching System which is capable of collecting solid cores of rock, or samples of loose regolith, and enclosing them in hermitically-sealed tubes. The samples, as they are collected, are immediately stored aboard the rover. 2. The tubes are designed to withstand exposure to the martian environment for years - longer than the time we think it will take for a sample return mission to retrieve them 3. Perseverance can carry the tubes indefinitely. However, if the rover were to experience a major failure, it would be difficult for another vehicle to retrieve the samples from inside Perseverance. 4. Perseverance is thus able to deposit the sample tubes on the surface of Mars. Like, simply put them on the ground. We plan to use an “adaptive caching strategy”, which is to say that along the way we will decide where is the best place to deposit the tubes. We may not place them all together in one place - we could choose to create more than once cache. Once tubes are deposited on the ground, Perseverance cannot pick them up again. 5. The current plan for Mars Sample Return is tentative and subject to change. However, it involves two future missions. The first would send a US lander with a European rover (“sample fetch rover”) and launch vehicle (“Mars ascent vehicle (MAV)”). The fetch rover would be lean and quick and designed to go pick up the samples deposited on the surface by Perseverance, and return them to the MAV. They would be packaged up in an container, this would be placed in the MAV, and the MAV would launch the container into Mars orbit. They would be collected there by the second future mission, which would send an orbiter with a mechanism to catch the sample container and package it into a re-entry capsule. That orbiter would bring it back to Earth and drop it in the atmosphere, where it would fall in the Utah desert. 6. In the event that the sample fetch rover has difficulty, the system is meant to be set up so that Perseverance could bring any samples still in its onboard storage directly to the sample return lander. This gives us two options for sample delivery to the lander. 7. Despite the dramatic appearance of Mars in the image posted above of a planet-scale dust event, dust deposition rates on Mars are not very high. It’s not like snowfall on Earth or something. While the tubes might be coated in some dust after a while (as we’ve seen with, say, the solar panels of landers), they’re unlikely to be _buried_. And we will deliberately choose places where we expect dust deposition to not be particularly high and where they would not be expected to be threatened by blowing sand. Between the HiRISE orbital maps and the rover NavCams, which we geo-reference together, we expect to be able to reliably locate the samples. Experiments in robotic sample retrieval for these tubes have been underway for years, in fact I’m pretty sure three different space agencies have all done various trials. It does sound complicated, but as was pointed out upthread, the sample fetch lander needs to save mass - it already has to have a rover with a robotic arm, and a rocket with enough propellant to launch the samples into orbit. Perseverance, on the other hand, carries a super complicated sample handling system, and the big drill, and the big robotic arm, and, importantly, the full suite of complex science instruments needed to do the geological field campaigns needed to characterize the environments we’ll study in Jezero, select where to sample, and document the sample’s location, surroundings, and geological context. Just that is basically as much as you can fit on the MSL-class landing system, which is the most mass-capable landing technique we have for Mars. So the MAV and such have to travel separately from the science rover with the sampling system. ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2021, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/perseverance-rover-on-mars-was-mars-lander-set-for-feb-18th-landing/932068/93 "2021-02-20T13:14:13Z")
Thanks for giving us the inside view, @wolfstu! I take it you’re working at JPL? Are/were you involved with Mars 2020 (if you don’t mind me being nosy)? ---
**Author:** ![wolfstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/d6d6ee/32.png) [@wolfstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfstu)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2021, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/perseverance-rover-on-mars-was-mars-lander-set-for-feb-18th-landing/932068/94 "2021-02-20T13:51:19Z")
Yep! I work at JPL, and have been on Mars 2020 for a little over four years. My role is mostly in surface operations (science and instruments), personnel training, and onboard autonomy software. ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2021, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/perseverance-rover-on-mars-was-mars-lander-set-for-feb-18th-landing/932068/95 "2021-02-20T13:59:37Z")
Awesome! And sounds like your job is just getting started! ---
**Author:** ![wolfstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/d6d6ee/32.png) [@wolfstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfstu)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2021, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/perseverance-rover-on-mars-was-mars-lander-set-for-feb-18th-landing/932068/96 "2021-02-20T14:01:52Z")
Yeah, now that it’s landed we actually have to _do_ everything we planned for the last several years! ---
**Author:** ![Kimera757](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kimera757/32/3765_2.png) [@Kimera757](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimera757)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2021, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/perseverance-rover-on-mars-was-mars-lander-set-for-feb-18th-landing/932068/97 "2021-02-20T14:49:13Z")
While I’m happy in general (at a search for life), I’m disappointed in the lack of a drill, and the rover’s speed (what was it, 0.1 miles per hour?). A seven foot long arm sounds promising. I hope in the future they can launch a more ambitious mission, which would mean finding a way to carry more mass there, so they could equip a drill, or a shovel. ---
**Author:** ![Kimera757](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kimera757/32/3765_2.png) [@Kimera757](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimera757)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2021, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/perseverance-rover-on-mars-was-mars-lander-set-for-feb-18th-landing/932068/98 "2021-02-20T15:10:57Z")
Double checking, it does have a rock corer on its arm. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2021, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/perseverance-rover-on-mars-was-mars-lander-set-for-feb-18th-landing/932068/99 "2021-02-20T16:12:40Z")
Perhaps the thread title can be changed to “Perseverance rover on Mars”? And see: > **[Ingenuity helicopter phones home from Mars | CNN](https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/20/world/mars-ingenuity-helicopter-update-scn-trnd/index.html)** > > The Ingenuity helicopter, sidekick and traveling companion to NASA's Perseverance rover, has checked in with a good report and is "operating as expected," according to the agency. It will be the first helicopter to fly on another planet. ---
**Author:** ![Fiendish\_Astronaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiendish_astronaut/32/3295_2.png) [@Fiendish\_Astronaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiendish_Astronaut)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2021, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/perseverance-rover-on-mars-was-mars-lander-set-for-feb-18th-landing/932068/100 "2021-02-20T16:55:13Z")
Yes this one has a drill but no means of carrying the sample home. The next mission doesn’t have a drill but _does_ have a means of carrying samples home. NASA thinks this is the best way to do it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/perseverance-rover-on-mars-was-mars-lander-set-for-feb-18th-landing/932068.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/perseverance-rover-on-mars-was-mars-lander-set-for-feb-18th-landing/932068.md?page=6)