Since landing on Mars last year, the Perseverance rover has been excavating Jezero Crater, the ancient Mars river deltataking rock core samples and exploring possible return landing sites, according to information from the Pot.
The POT and the European Space Agency announced a change of plan to execute that return of the robotic vehicle together with the samples of Martian stones. It was originally planned to include a sample search rover and associated lander. Now the idea is to use the Ingenuity helicopter to simply receive the rock samples, and bet on the operation of perseverance for longer.
“Right now, based on what we know (from) an in-depth look at Curiosity and also what we’ve learned from perseverancewe feel much more comfortable to make Perseverance the main place, the main option, to obtain the samples there”, said the associate administrator of the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Thomas Zurbuchen. “That’s because of the things we learned on Mars.”
[Buzz Aldrin subastó la chaqueta con la que voló a la Luna por 2.7 millones de dólares: estos fueron todos los objetos que vendió]
Ingenuity Helicopter
naivety, the 4-pound helicopter that hitched a ride with Percy to Mars, was initially a technology demonstration mission to see if controlled flights on Mars would be possible. The Ingenuity helicopter exceeded expectations beyond its 30-day demonstration mission and is now in a new operational phase, surveying Mars from above, a report from TheNewTimes.
Simplifying the mission means cutting costs. “All I can say at this point is the obvious,” said Jeff Gramling, director of the program. NASA’s Mars Sample Return. “One lander is certainly much less expensive than two.”
With the removal of a new rover, the mission will only need to build a single lander. For their part, the space agencies hope that perseverance keep it running by the time the lander arrives Mars Sample Return in the year 2030.