Perseverance is a machine that launched in the summer of 2020.

After approximately seven months, Perseverance landed on Mars Feb. 18, 2021. And what a landing!

It took seven minutes for the rover to go from entering the Martian atmosphere to landing.

During that seven minutes, temperatures ablated by the heat shield were approximately 10,000 degrees F.

Once the heat shield is dropped, a parachute deploys, further slowing the vehicle.

At approximately 2,000 feet, the back shell separated from the parachute, and retrorockets fired up, slowing the rover again, until the rover was motionless in the Martian atmosphere.

At about 20 feet above Mars, a set of tethers lowered the rover down as a sky crane, setting the rover gently down on its wheels.

Perseverance has the basic body plan of the rover Curiosity, also currently roving Mars.

Some updates have occurred, though, and the wheels are a fine example of the upgrades.

Curiosity’s wheels have taken a beating, having driven over 18 miles, mostly uphill. The engineers at the Jet Propulsion Lab who build these rovers designed newer, better wheels for Perseverance.

Perseverance also carries some similar instruments as Curiosity, with the obvious improvements in technology in the 10 years between building these machines.

For example, all the cameras on Perseverance are color cameras, and some also include microphones, to capture the sounds of Mars for the first time on a rover. There are new instruments and equipment all over (and under) this rover, including ground-penetrating radar that can “see” down 30 feet beneath Perseverance, a super laser that can blast holes up to 1 cm. deep into the Martian rock, and many more.

Three pieces of equipment are worthy of some detailed explanation.

The first is called MOXIE. Its function was to create oxygen gas by breaking up the carbon dioxide in Mars’ atmosphere into carbon and oxygen.

Oxygen is extremely useful because humans can breathe it, of course. But oxygen can also be used to make water. It can also be useful as a rocket fuel oxidizer.

This machine worked as planned, which means that future astronauts can make their own air to breathe on Mars, which means that they don’t have to bring as much along with them. MOXIE generated at least a quart of oxygen from Mars’ carbon dioxide atmosphere.

The second instrument to be focused on is the sample return cache and sample tubes. Up to 40 samples are being collected from different places as the rover explores its landing site, and surrounding environs.

These samples are deployed on Mars in small groups, to be collected by a “fetch rover” until a sample return mission collects them, and returns them to Earth for analysis by the finest labs on the ground.

The third instrument is by far the coolest. This is Ingenuity: a helicopter that flew 72 missions over the red planet. It flew ahead of the rover, taking images to beam back.

Ingenuity provided scouting information, as well as getting detailed imagery in places that the rover can’t go.

Perseverance is landing in a very old crater called Jezero. Jezero’s width is about the distance from RCC to UNCP.

Jezero crater is unusual because a long time ago, it was filled with water, and had rivers flowing into and out of it.

In one end of the crater is a delta formed when fast water from a river flowed into standing water, as in a lake.

The formation of a delta 50 feet high off the floor of the lakebed is a sign that this process of flowing water on Mars was very long in duration, most likely at least 10 million years.

Was this enough time for life to begin on Mars? Hopefully, Perseverance will continue to collect the samples that answer these questions once and for all: was there life on Mars in the past? Is there life on Mars currently? The answers to these questions are profound, no matter which way it turns out.

This nuclear-powered rover is slated to work on Mars for almost four years, but mission planners are planning for a much longer run than that.

If Percy’s older sisters are any testament to the longevity of NASA’s off-planet engineering chops, Percy could potentially last until it exhausts its nuclear power supply in about 25 years.

There are also many good internet resources from NASA, and more will be posted in the coming days, as we draw near the third anniversary. If you want to find out more about the status of the mission, go here: https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/mission/status/ .

The latest mission videos: https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/multimedia/videos/ , and images: https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/multimedia/images/ .

For the best of the more recent 360 degree panorama, go here: https://mars.nasa.gov/resources/27844/perseverances-360-degree-view-from-airey-hill/ .

For the highlights of the wildly successful Ingenuity mission, go here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raOA2MX-XLQ&list=PLTiv_XWHnOZqG9owUnliSBL79sBBDyED7&index=2 .

So where do you go to find out more information about Perseverance and Ingenuity?

Fortunately for you, the Robeson Planetarium will be open on Saturday, Feb. 24, for public programs at 1:30 and 2:30 p.m. all about the third anniversary of these gloriously successful Martian machines.

I hope to have a guest speaker from the Mars mission team at NASA to call into the planetarium, and she will answer your questions about the missions exploring Mars currently.

Reservations should be made by calling 910-671-6000, extension 3882, as the inflatable planetarium holds only 25 people.