Perseverance Archives

January 26, 2024January 26, 2024 by Mark Thompson

Ingenuity Suffers Rotor Damage, Ending the Mission

Ingenuity stood on the surface fo Mars — Ingenuity helicopter

There have been numerous robotic space missions reach the end of their operating life over the years and for a multitude of reasons. Be they catastrophic failure or a scheduled end but I must say one that has recently made me a little sad is the demise of the Ingenuity helicopter on Mars. It sustained damage after its recent flight and can now no longer fly. In a mission that was supposed to complete five flights in 30 days, the plucky little helicopter completed 72 flights over three years!

November 28, 2023November 28, 2023 by Mark Thompson

A Tiny Quadcopter Could Gather Rocks for China’s Sample Return Mission

Mars Ingenuity helicopter on the surface of Mars — Image of the Mars Ingenuity helicopter (Source : NASA)

Space exploration is always changing. Before February 2021 there had never been a human made craft flying around in the atmosphere of another world (other than rocket propelled landers arriving or departing). The Mars Perseverance rover changed that, carrying with it what can only be described as a drone named Ingenuity. It revolutionised planetary exploration and now, China are getting in on the act with a proposed quadcopter for a Mars sample return mission.

November 16, 2022November 16, 2022 by Evan Gough

The Future of Mars Exploration Belongs to Helicopters

NASA's Mars Helicopters: Present, Future, and Proposed: A family portrait of Mars helicopters - Ingenuity, Sample Recovery Helicopter, and a future Mars Science Helicopter concept. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

Even though there’s no firm date for a Mars sample return mission, the Perseverance rover is busy collecting rock samples and caching them for retrieval. We’ve known of the future Mars sample return mission for a while now, and as time goes on, we’re learning more details.

The latest development concerns helicopters. With Ingenuity’s success, NASA has decided that the sample return mission will take two helicopters.

August 31, 2022August 31, 2022 by Laurence Tognetti

NASA Gives a Detailed Analysis of all the Landing Debris Perseverance Has Found on Mars

A recent blog by Dr. Justin Maki, Imaging Scientist and the Deputy Principal Investigator on the Perseverance rover Mastcam-Z camera, provides a detailed account about the debris the entry, descent, and landing (EDL) system left scattered around the Martian surface while delivering the Perseverance rover to Jezero Crater. This blog highlights how much hardware goes into sending our brave, robotic explorers to the Red Planet while discussing the importance of imaging such debris.

April 11, 2022April 11, 2022 by Andy Tomaswick

Perseverance’s Software Lets it Move Swiftly Across the Surface of Mars

Mars rovers are not known for being particularly speedy. Spirit and Opportunity managed a max speed of a whopping 5 cm per second, while Curiosity clocked in at a max speed of .1 kph. Over their long mission times, even those speeds opened up many potential areas to explore. But Perseverance is leaving them in the dust as it makes its way up to a river delta where it will begin its next round of sample collection.

January 28, 2022January 28, 2022 by Andy Tomaswick

NASA is Already Designing Hardware for a Mars Sample Return Mission

Testing is key to the success of any space mission, and the more complex the mission, the more testing is required to complete it successfully. The Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission is one of the most ambitious missions ever undertaken. It started with the Perseverance rover, which is currently exploring Jezero crater while occasionally stopping to fill sample bottles with interesting material. But the more impressive engineering feat is what happens next. NASA plans to launch a combination lander, rover, and ascent rocket that will land on the Martian surface, pick up the sample containers Perseverance has left behind, sterilize them, launch them back into space, and then return them to Earth.

October 7, 2021October 7, 2021 by Scott Alan Johnston

Perseverance Sees Evidence of Flash Floods in Jezero Crater

Nearly eight months into the Perseverance rover’s mission on Mars, researchers have confirmed that Jezero crater is (as was believed) an ancient lakebed, but more significantly, that it once experienced powerful flash floods that pushed boulders from tens of miles upstream into the crater basin.

September 9, 2021September 9, 2021 by Matt Williams

Perseverance Drills Another Hole, and This Time the Sample is Intact

When it landed on Mars in February of 2021, the Perseverance rover joined a small armada of robotic explorers working hard to characterize Mars’ environment and atmosphere and determine if it ever supported life. But unlike its predecessors, one of the key objectives of the rover is to obtain samples of Martian soil and rock, which it will leave in a cache for later retrieval by a joint NASA-ESA mission.

This will be the first sample return from Mars, and the analysis of these samples will provide new insight into the geological and environmental evolution of Mars. The first attempt to obtain a sample didn’t go so well, with the sample crumbling before it was placed in the cache. Undeterred, the science team moved onto the next site and prepared to try again. A few days ago, NASA confirmed that the rover succeeded in its second attempt and has the pictures to prove it!

August 18, 2021August 18, 2021 by Andy Tomaswick

Ingenuity Sees Perseverance From Above

Where’s Waldo (or Where’s Wally) is a very popular book series for all ages. One way to make it potentially more interesting is to adapt it to interplanetary exploration by searching for a Martian rover in a picture taken from a Martian helicopter. Ingenuity took a picture on its eleventh flight that would be a worthy addition to any interplanetary search game – in this image, the goal is to find Perseverance.

July 16, 2021July 16, 2021 by Andy Tomaswick

Ingenuity is now Mapping the Terrain Around Perseverance

Having eyes in the sky is useful for a variety of activities. Everything from farming to military operations has benefited from the boom in drone usage, as the small aircraft track the progress of crop disease, enemy movements, or how awesome a professor skier looks going down a mountain. Now the benefits of aerial surveillance has spread to other worlds as Perseverance is starting to map out its path with help from Ingenuity.