On the way to Jezero Crater, the agency’s newest Red Planet off-roader peers all the way back to its landing site and surveys the path ahead.

NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover will take a steeply inclined route along the western wall of Jezero crater with the goal of reaching the rim in early December. During the climb, the rover not only captured a beautiful view of the interior of the Jezero crater, but also images of the tracks it left behind after its wheel slipped along the way.

The image mosaic, composed of 44 images acquired on September 27, the 1,282nd Martian day of Perseverance’s mission, features many of the Martian landmarks and firsts that made the rover’s 3.5-year exploration of Jezero so memorable, including the landing site of the rover, the site where it first found sedimentary rock, the location of the first sample deposit on another planet, and the last airfield for NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter. The rover captured the view near a location the team calls “Faraway Rock,” about halfway along its climb up the crater wall.

“The image not only shows our past and present, but also shows the biggest challenge of getting where we want to be in the future,” said Rick Welch, Perseverance deputy project manager, from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “If you look at the right side of the mosaic, you start to get an idea of ​​what we are dealing with. Mars didn’t want to make it easy for anyone to reach the top of this ridge.”

On the right side of the mosaic a slope of approximately 20 degrees is visible. Although Perseverance has climbed 20-degree slopes before (both NASA’s Curiosity and Opportunity rovers had hills at least 10 degrees steeper), this is the first time it has climbed such a steep slope on such a smooth surface taken.

During much of the climb, the rover passed over loosely packed dust and sand with a thin, brittle crust. On several days, Perseverance covered only about 50% of the distance it would travel on less slippery surfaces, and on one occasion it covered only 20% of the planned route.

“Mars rovers have driven over steeper terrain, and they’ve driven over smoother terrain, but this is the first time you’re dealing with both – and on this scale,” said Camden Miller of JPL, a rover planner, or “driver”, for Curiosity and now fulfills the same role in the Perseverance mission. “For every two steps forward Perseverance takes, we take at least one step back. The rover’s planners saw that this would be a long, hard job, so we came together to come up with some options.”

On October 3, they sent orders for Perseverance to test strategies to reduce slippage. First, they had it back up the ramp (testing on Earth has shown that under certain conditions the rover’s “rocker-bogie” suspension system maintains better traction while driving in reverse). They then attempted to cross-slope (switchbacking) and drive closer to the northern edge of the ‘Summerland Trail’, the name the mission has given to the rover’s route along the crater rim.

Data from these efforts showed that while all three approaches improved traction, staying close to the northern edge of the slope proved to be most beneficial. The rover’s planners believe the presence of larger rocks closer to the surface made all the difference.

“That’s the plan now, but we may have to change things later,” Miller said. “No Mars Rover mission has attempted to climb a mountain this big so quickly. The science team wants to reach the top of the crater rim as quickly as possible because of the scientific possibilities up there. It’s up to us rover planners to find a way to get them there.”

Perseverance is expected to reach the crater rim in a few weeks at a location the science team calls “Lookout Hill.” From there it continues for about 450 meters to ‘Witch Hazel Hill’. Orbital data show that Witch Hazel Hill contains light-colored, layered rock. The team looks forward to comparing this new location to ‘Bright Angel’, the area where Perseverance recently discovered and sampled the ‘Cheyava Falls’ rock.

The rover landed on Mars with 43 tubes for collecting samples from the Martian surface. So far, Perseverance has sealed and cached 24 rock and regolith (fractured rock and dust) samples, plus one atmospheric sample and three witness tubes. Early in the mission’s development, NASA required that the rover be able to cache at least 31 samples of rock, regolith, and witness tubes during Perseverance’s mission at Jezero. The project added 12 pipes, bringing the total to 43. The extras were recorded in anticipation of the challenging conditions on Mars that could result in some tubes not functioning as designed.

NASA decided to retire two of the empty spare tubes because access to them would pose a risk to the rover’s small internal robotic arm needed for the task: a wiring harness connected to the arm would be attached to a shackle on the frame of the rover can get caught when reaching for the two empty sample tubes.

With these spare parts no longer available, Perseverance currently has eleven empty rock sampling tubes and two empty witness tubes.

A major goal of Perseverance’s mission on Mars is astrobiology, including storing samples that may contain signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will characterize the planet’s geology and past climate, helping pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet and as the first mission to collect and store Martian rock and regolith.

NASA’s Mars Sample Return Program, in collaboration with ESA (European Space Agency), is designed to send spacecraft to Mars to collect these sealed samples from the surface and return them to Earth for in-depth analysis.

The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission is part of NASA’s Moon to Mars exploration approach, which includes Artemis missions to the moon that will help prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, managed for the agency by Caltech, built and operates the Perseverance rover.

For more information about perseverance:

https://science.nasa.gov/mission/mars-2020-perseverance

Karen Fox/Molly Wasser
NASA Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
[email protected] / [email protected]

D.C. Agle
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California.
818-393-9011
[email protected]

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