Perseverance Rover - Finding Ancient Life on Mars

Hope you're all ready for another seven minutes of terror prior to a (hopefully) successful landing of NASA's latest Martian SUV (Perseverance Rover)! Following in the footsteps of Curiosity, "Percy" will mark the next chapter of Mars Exploration with lots of new capabilities and feats.

Touchdown on the surface of Mars is planned for Feb 18,2021 at 12:55 p.m. PST. The Live-Feed will be available via the NASA-TV Livestream on YouTube below:



The next couple of hours, days, weeks etc. will be quite exciting (provided that all goes well during the EDL phase, meaning: Entry, Descent and Landing).

All about the science, the instruments aboard the rover and the objectives of NASA's Mars 2020 mission can be found here. Among the many new things this mission introduces, it should be highlighted that Percy will carry a helicopter drone called "Ingenuity", which will be deployed in the rover's vicinity to inspect the surrounding terrain and take aerial shots of the Martian landscape.


OVERVIEW OF INSTRUMENTS

Click on image for larger version


PAST LIFE ON MARS?
Another exciting aspect is that the rover is officially on an astrobiology mission (in contrast to her predecessor "Curiosity"). This means that looking for biosignatures of ancient life on Mars is one of the mission objectives. As many of you know, interesting things have been spotted on Mars during previous missions. However, it was never unambiguous what has been imaged, even if something looked really organic in nature, being quite reminiscent of terrestrial fossils (also see here for a collection of anomalous features found on the Martian surface over the years). I'm linking some other related ATS threads further below for those interested.

So what can we expect from this mission? I, for one, keep my fingers crossed that this will be a successful endeavour, that's for sure. But feel free to chime in with any thoughts you might have regarding Percy's upcoming space adventure!

Exciting times ahead, indeed. So "Godspeed", Perseverance. Have a safe landing and a jolly good time on Mars!




Sources & Links Related to Mars 2020 Mission:
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01. NASA: Mars 2020 Mission / Official Website
02. NASA-TV Live Stream
03. Details on Perseverance/Mars 2020 Mission
04. More information on Ingenuity/Scout Helicopter
05. Perseverance Rover on Twitter
06. Sounds of Mars: Rover to Put Ears on Mars for 1st time
07. A New 7 Minutes of Terror: See the Nail-Biting Mars Landing of NASA's Perseverance Rover

Previous Threads Related to Ancient Life on Mars:
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01. The Case For Past Life On Mars: Revisiting The Fossil Outcrop at Eagle Crater
02. Kirkwood Outcrop on Mars Remains A Mystery: Is This A Glimpse At Past Martian Life?
03. Potential Anomalies on Mars - The Ultimate Collection
04. Martian Blueberries - Revisiting The Odd Spherules of Meridiani Planum

a reply to: jeep3r

Thanks for providing the livestream ready for tomorrow

I will be watching and enduring another seven minutes of terror.

Fingers crossed.

a reply to: gortex

You're welcome! I'm sure it'll be nerve-wracking to watch while waiting for the first images. Hopefully, all those who put so much effort into this mission will be rewarded with a spectacular and successful landing.

Good luck, Percy!

NASA’s 10-foot-long, $2.4 billion Perseverance rover is equipped with suites of technologies designed to aid in the hunt for life.

•Sixteen engineering and science cameras support safe navigation and help observe the surface, from extreme close-ups to far away. Some of these are part of larger scientific systems, like an ultraviolet spectrometer and another that uses X-rays.

•A 7-foot arm attached to the front of Perseverance includes a powerful drill that can pull core samples from rocks that interest scientists. The samples can then be sealed and stored in tubes inside the rover’s main body for more analysis later.

•Perseverance also has the capability to remove the stored samples and leave them in designated spots around Jezero Crater. A future mission – yet to be scheduled – could one day land on the Red Planet, pick up the tubes and then fly off to return them to scientists on Earth.a reply to: jeep3r

www.yahoo.com...

I think it goes without saying, but if Perseverance finds life on Mars, that will be a monumental historical event logged into the history of man's technological achievements. I wish them the utmost luck. Thanks jeep3r for posting this potentially historical event.

a reply to: jeep3r

I love these things but why do we spend billions of dollars to keep looking at sand and rocks? They are never going to confirm life there.

a reply to: In4ormant

Haven’t you seen? They are printing so much money it’s obscene. It’s like water from a spring - never ending.

Why not use some of that for cool endeavors?

This is how to write a thread, not too long and provided me with everything I wanted and needed to know. 👌🏼

Will be following, thanks 🍻

I wonder if it has an anal probe on board?

That’s apparently what more advanced space travelers do. If we find a living creature we must capture it, fly it out of the atmosphere, inspect its butt, then take it back covering all our tracks.

Then and only then will we be invited to the Intergalactic Federation of Space Dwelling Monkeys.

On a serious’er note, it’s going to be really cool to find out if some of the previous photos were actually fossils. The vertebrae looking picture is the first one I would want to visit.

a reply to: jeep3r

SnF!

a reply to: jeep3r

They couldn’t have waited another couple days to land it? I’m gonna be working!!

a reply to: jeep3r

Looks like there might be an updated live stream specifically for the launch.




Here's one with lots of neat graphics and animations on the Space Channel






​This map of Mars shows Jezero Crater, where the Perseverance rover is scheduled to land, as well as the locations where all of NASA's other successful Mars missions touched down.





This illustration shows the events that occur in the final minutes of NASA's Perseverance rover for it to land on the Martian surface.




Color highlights minerals detected in the crater using orbiters.




Members of the Perseverance rover mission pose at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory on July 17, 2019.




This map shows regions in and around Jezero Crater on Mars where the rover can explore.




Explore Jerezo Crater - CNN

a reply to: jeep3r

Come on the Perseverance.

You can do it.

Gods speed and a safe landing!

a reply to: MarkOfTheV

Thanks a lot for that elaborate post! In about an hour's time we'll have certainty as to whether it all worked out. Fingers crossed, watching the LIVE stream now...

a reply to: jeep3r

Look at the SIZE of this thing!! One lady said the first thing they sent was roughly the size of a microwave! Now we got this SUV sized rover! And it's got a friggin drone!!!

So exciting!

Here's a link to Percy's RAW image archive:

mars.nasa.gov...

That's where the first LIVE images will be available. I assume this will also be the place where all the other images (per sol and per camera type), will be made available - similar to Curiosity's gallery over at NASA/JPL's MSL website.

a reply to: MarkOfTheV

Indeed, the stuff we're "shipping" to Mars has gotten bigger and bigger over the years, even if Percy is just about the same size as Curiosity. And something like the "Ingenuity" helicopter drone was really missing during the MSL mission, as well as zoomable panoramic cameras.

Percy's got all that on board this time (and a lot more)... now it needs to touch down safely, all fingers crossed!

About 21 minutes to go.

Edit: cruise stage separation confirmed what ever that means. LoL

Cruise stage separation, all those automated procedures, the tension is almost unbearable!

*fingers still crossed*

a reply to: jeep3r

I'm not old enough to remember the Moon Landings.

Cool indeed.

Fingers and toes crossed.

There are some really cool instruments and even a drone that can fly for 90 sec attached to that thing if it makes it down in one piece the possibilities for new knowledge are abundant

Yes!

She's down.