Use Atlas V Rockets, This is NASA's goal to send robots to Mars
NASA officially made the United States (US) the third country to launch a mission to the Red Planet this month. Reported by Space, the Atlas V rocket made by the United Launch Alliance was successfully launched on Thursday (7/30/20) at 07:50 am EDT (18.50 WIB) from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida.
There were no significant obstacles in the countdown of the launch of the Atlas V rocket. Although the Jet Propulsion Laboratory mission control center was hit by an earthquake and the rocket experienced a change in temperature, but in the end the Atlas V managed to separate the stages of the rocket and spacecraft after 57 minutes gliding in the air. The spacecraft temperature has returned to normal and is currently officially traveling to Mars.
"Interplanetary launching is fast and dynamic, so a spaceship is designed to put itself in safe mode if its onboard computer senses conditions not within predetermined parameters," agency officials wrote in a post-launch update quoted by Space.
Related to this mission, the spacecraft launched by NASA is reportedly carrying several important cargo that is part of the Mars 2020 mission. The mission is planned to arrive on the Red Planet on February 18, 2021 and land in the Jazero crater to look for signs of past life. This is done by examining rocks and soil from the red planet's ecosystem.
"The aim of our effort is to explore the geology of the landing site, to look for signs of biosignatures from the past. We are not a life detection mission. We look for signs of past life on the surface of Mars. Also, look for signs that Mars was previously habitable until it is at a level that is still habitable, where it is possible to be inhabited. Our third goal is to prepare samples that can be returned, and then the fourth is to prepare for human exploration in the future, "Adam Steltzner, Chief Engineer of the Mars 2020 mission, was quoted by Space Flight Now.
Space News reports, the Jazero crater was chosen as a landing site for the Mars 2020 mission because the 28mil (45km) area has a lake with river deltas flowing in it. This is believed by NASA scientists as the right region to reduce the cargo of Mars 2020 given the large possibility of the Jazero crater has rocks and soil that contains evidence of past life from the Red Planet.
Reported by Space Flight Now, to conduct the study, the Mars 2020 mission consisted of an explorer called a car-sized Perseverance rover. The explorer carries a load of 43 tubes the size of thin cigars that serve to carry rock and soil samples from the Jazero crater to Earth.
In addition, the belly of the Perseverance rover also contained a 1.8kg miniature helicopter weighing Ingenuity. This miniature helicopter is planned to conduct the first flight test on the red planet, which will be the first flight trial on another planet.
The mission to look for signs of life on the Red Planet is not the first time NASA has done it. Previously in the mid-1970s until the early 1980s NASA had sent Viking Landers technology to the Red Planet to look for signs of life. Unfortunately, the discovery of the mission brought quite a lot of debate and ambiguity among scientists, so that dissatisfaction ultimately led NASA to carry out another mission through Mars 2020 this year.
"Now that we know what Mars's history is, we can say, 'Okay, maybe there is life there. "Let's find out if there is life on Mars," NASA administrator Jim Bridenstin was quoted as saying.