NASA rover launches from Florida to seek out signs of past life on Mars
NASA’s latest Mars rover Perseverance blasted off Thursday from Cape Canaveral, Florida, morning on an ambitious mission to search for traces of possible past microbial life on the Red Planet.
The Atlas 5 rocket launched at 7:50 a.m. on the $2.4 billion mission, which is expected to reach Earth’s planetary neighbor on Feb. 18, 2021 — becoming the fifth rover to make the trip since 1997, according to Agence France-Presse.
“The spacecraft is in good health and on its way to Mars,” NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said on Twitter.
Vice President Mike Pence tweeted: “Today is a great day for American leadership in space!”
The six-wheeled robotic rover — which launched atop the rocket from the Boeing-Lockheed joint venture United Launch Alliance — also is scheduled to deploy a small helicopter-drone and test equipment for future human missions to the fourth planet from the sun, Reuters reported.
Perseverance is expected to land at the base of an 820-foot-deep crater called Jezero, a former lake from 3.5 billion years ago, which scientists believe could provide evidence of potential past microbial life on the planet.
“It’s really kind of a key of a whole bunch of new research that we’re doing that is focused on the question … is there life out there?” NASA’s science division chief Thomas Zurbuchen said after the launch.
Billions of years ago, the Martian surface had lots of water – which is considered to be a key ingredient for life — on its surface.
One of the most complicated maneuvers in Perseverance’s journey will be what engineers call the “seven minutes of terror,” when the robot endures extreme heat and speeds during its descent through the Martian atmosphere.
It will deploy supersonic parachutes before igniting mini rocket engines to gently touch down on the surface.
Aboard Perseverance is a four-pound chopper named Ingenuity that is expected to test powered flight on Mars for the first time.
Since NASA’s first Mars rover Sojourner landed in 1997, the space agency has sent two others – Spirit and Opportunity – that have explored the surface and detected signs of past water formations, among other discoveries.
NASA also has successfully sent the three Pathfinder, Phoenix and InSight landers.