With microphones on board: Touching “diligence” in the Martian abyss

Thursday, February 18, 2021

With microphones on board
“Perseverance” will touch the abyss of Mars

Nine years have passed since the last NASA rover “Curiosity” landed on Mars. Now he has to have company. “Perseverance” is technically more sophisticated – and even has a mini helicopter in its luggage.

After about six months of flight time, the American rover “Perseverance” is scheduled to land on Mars today. Launched from Cape Canaveral at the end of July 2020, the US space agency NASA’s robot will launch at 9:30 p.m. The site has never been explored.

“Perseverance” can be translated as “dependent power” in German. The nearly $ 2.5 billion NASA rover was designed and built over eight years. Now it is time to search for traces of previous microbial life on Mars, as well as to study the planet’s climate and geography. On board, the size of a small car is about 1,000 kilograms of robot 7 with scientific instruments, 23 cameras and a laser.

The rover will run a number of NASA premiers: For the first time, microphones are being “diligently” sent to Mars, for the first time by a small helicopter and, for the first time, in a joint venture with the European Space Agency to bring samples from Mars to Earth. Isa.

When “Perseverance” lands, it will be NASA’s fifth rover to land on Mars – most recently in 2012 “Curiosity”. Overall, less than half of the globes launched so far have been successful. Last week, space exploration from the United Arab Emirates and later China was successfully transferred into planetary orbit. The UAE investigation “Al-Amal” does not have to land Chinese spacecraft “Tianwen 1” Scheduled for two to three months.