NASA will launch Mars rover Perseverance on July 30 at the earliest

By admin On Jul 1, 2020

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NASA’s Mars rover Perseverance will launch on July 30 at the earliest. That was previously scheduled for July 17, but there are delays in preparations to link the rover to the missile. The launch window has been extended a few days until August 15.

NASA was originally scheduled to launch its new Mars rover between July 17 and August 11. It is the third time that the first possible launch date has been pushed back. That is why the launch window has now been postponed to August 15 and the space agency is investigating whether that can be stretched even further. There is a need for slack because a launch cannot take place in bad weather, for example.

The launch of the Mars rover should take place in the foreseeable future. If the launch window is missed, then you have to wait 26 months for another chance. This has to do with the position of the Earth in relation to Mars. During the chosen launch window, the distance between the planets is optimal for a launch and that only happens once every two years.

On June 11, the launch window was curtailed for the first time. The first launch option was then put on July 20th because the United Launch Alliance needed more time to prepare the ground systems for the Atlas V rocket launch. On June 24, that date was moved to July 22 due to a problem discovered in the fairing of the rocket while installing the rover. The new postponed until July 30th was caused by delays in preparations to attach the fairing to the missile.

Although the first possible launch has been postponed several times, the Mars 2020 mission is proceeding according to plan. If Perseverance is launched in the near future, the robot will arrive in the Jezero crater on the red planet on February 18, 2021. The robber goes there to look for signs of life. The landing site is an area that previous Mars missions could not reach and that should provide many new insights.

The new Mars rover is partly based on the highly successful Curiosity, but also has many new features and instruments. Perseverance is equipped with 23 cameras and is equipped with a drill, which will take samples from the Martian surface. It is planned that new Mars rovers will be launched later with a small rocket on board. They then have to pick up the monsters and launch them from the red planet to bring them back to Earth.

Perseverance is also taking a small autonomous helicopter to Mars called Ingenuity. That is an experiment to see if it is possible to fly in the thin air of Mars. If successful, NASA will consider using helicopters for more support functions on future Mars missions. The Perseverance mission must last at least one Martian year. That corresponds to 687 days on Earth. Mars rover Curiosity, which landed on the planet in 2012, had a similar mission duration, but is still active.