Mars 2020 Rover - "Perseverance"

[selvaarchi]

Now NASA has a concept for Mars that I am in was hoping China will be using on the moon. There I was hoping Chang'e 5 will have a rover and it will bring samples back to the base to be transported back to earth. In fact I was hoping the rover could be a Chang'e 4 mission where the samples could be collected and Chang'e 5 mission could bring back.

http://spacenews.com/nasas-mars-2020...h-its-samples/

NASA has pivoted on a key design point for the Mars 2020 rover, the first of several missions required to return a martian surface sample to Earth.

Once thought of as a sample-caching mission, NASA now plans for Mars 2020 to extract several surface samples from each region it visits and leave them on the ground for a future rover to cache, Ken Farley, Mars 2020 project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, told the Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group (MEPAG) during a Feb. 24 meeting in Pasadena, California.

[NEOWatcher]

In fact I was hoping the rover could be a Chang'e 4 mission where the samples could be collected and Chang'e 5 mission could bring back.

Chang'e 4 (being that it is a Chang'e 3 backup) is not equipped for samples. By the time you modify it, it will be a completely new craft and probably more effort than just building another Chang'e 5 class module.

But; that's not what you started this thread for...
I'm not sure I like the idea they are proposing.

On the plus side, you do have lowered risk of getting all your samples stuck somewhere and a small simplification of instruments by dividing between two missions. You also have the advantage of already traversing the terrain to ease the risk of the collection mission.
But:
You are now relying on 2 complete rover missions to complete the mission. I see that as increasing the risk of not being able to return the samples. Plus; with the fickle government allocations, I wonder if there would even be a commitment of funds for two missions. Lastly, if they are core samples, wouldn't exposure to the slight atmosphere and weather have an effect on those samples?

[selvaarchi]

I'm not sure I like the idea they are proposing.

On the plus side, you do have lowered risk of getting all your samples stuck somewhere and a small simplification of instruments by dividing between two missions. You also have the advantage of already traversing the terrain to ease the risk of the collection mission.
But:
You are now relying on 2 complete rover missions to complete the mission. I see that as increasing the risk of not being able to return the samples. Plus; with the fickle government allocations, I wonder if there would even be a commitment of funds for two missions. Lastly, if they are core samples, wouldn't exposure to the slight atmosphere and weather have an effect on those samples?

I like the idea as this can so easily be made into an international mission. Other countries are also planning rover and sample missions to Mars. Let us keep the rovers as country efforts but the sample they obtain be returned by "international missions". As more countries are involved, there is less likely to have countries opting out due to lack of allocations.

[selvaarchi]

Some updates on the Mars 2020 rover's color cameras, and approval of the progress of Mastcam-Z courtesy of Emily Lakdawalla.

http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily...cam-z-pdr.html

The Mastcam-Z team is still quite a long way from building flight hardware, but they made a major step closer to that faraway goal this week: they passed their Preliminary Design Review. A Preliminary Design Review, or PDR, is one of several milestones in the development of a spacecraft element. At the PDR, an external board of experts convened to scrutinize the team's plans and identify whether there are any problems that might prevent them from developing an instrument that can be built as planned, on time, on budget, that will function on Mars, and meet its stated goals.

The PDR was held on October 28 and 29, 2015 at Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego, who will be building much of the flight hardware for Mastcam-Z. About 50 people were in attendance, including Mastcam-Z team members, associated scientists and engineers, Mars 2020 mission management from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), and a board of 11 experts from JPL and outside companies and institutions. I attended and observed the whole two-day meeting.
Mastcam-Z Preliminary Design Review meeting, October 2015

[selvaarchi]

Mars 2020 might have a flying sidekick for company

http://www.seeker.com/nasas-next-mar...847631471.html

NASA is considering sending a miniature helicopter to Mars to serve as an aerial scout for its Mars 2020 rover.

The helicopter, which is intended primarily as a technology demonstrator, would be the first vehicle to traverse through the thin Martian atmosphere.

Flying on Mars is a challenge. The planet's atmospheric pressure is just one percent that of Earth's so the aircraft needs relatively big blades compared to the size of its body.

[Brown Motie]

Mars 2020 might have a flying sidekick for company

http://www.seeker.com/nasas-next-mar...847631471.html

Cool. Just like Silkworm.

[selvaarchi]

NASA is ready to proceed with final design and construction of its next Mars rover.

http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/pr...72&filter=1639

Once a mission receives preliminary approval, it must go through four rigorous technical and programmatic reviews – known as Key Decision Points (KDP) — to proceed through the phases of development prior to launch. Phase A involves concept and requirements definition, Phase B is preliminary design and technology development, Phase C is final design and fabrication, and Phase D is system assembly, testing, and launch. Mars 2020 has just passed its KDP-C milestone.

"Since Mars 2020 is leveraging the design and some spare hardware from Curiosity, a significant amount of the mission's heritage components have already been built during Phases A and B," said George Tahu, Mars 2020 program executive at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "With the KDP to enter Phase C completed, the project is proceeding with final design and construction of the new systems, as well as the rest of the heritage elements for the mission."

[selvaarchi]

The Planetary Society gets their wish and we get to hear the sounds of Mars

http://www.scienceworldreport.com/ar...ars-sounds.htm

The Mars 2020 mission has declared that JPL-provided Entry, Descent, and Landing (EDL) microphones, and a microphone included in the SuperCam science instrument, will soon fly on board their rover. It will be led by Roger Wiens at Los Alamos National Laboratory, in partnership with CNES, the French Space Agency.

The Mars microphones will enable the scientists to finally add a second human sense to the visual imagery they have captured from the Mars planet, The Planetary Society reported. Bill Nye, CEO of The Planetary Society, said that we will hear the sounds of Mars finally and asked the public to stay tuned and get ready for their mission.

[selvaarchi]

Wow, Mars 2020 is going to cost more then US two billion dollars

http://spacenews.com/mars-2020-rover...han-2-billion/

As NASA’s next flagship Mars mission, the Mars 2020 rover, moves into its next phase of development, agency officials say the mission will cost $2.1 billion, more than originally estimated for a mission that they argue will also be more capable than first planned.

NASA announced July 15 that the Mars 2020 mission passed a development milestone known as Key Decision Point C (KDP-C), allowing the mission to proceed into Phase C design and development work. The rover is scheduled for launch in mid-2020 and land on Mars in February 2021.

[selvaarchi]

NASA books nuclear-certified Atlas 5 rocket for Mars 2020 rover launch

http://spaceflightnow.com/2016/07/25...-rover-launch/

America’s next Mars rover, a $2.1 billion nuclear-powered vehicle to search for evidence that life once existed there, will be launched to the Red Planet in the summer of 2020 by a powerful Atlas 5 rocket.

Jim Green, planetary science division director, revealed the selection of the United Launch Alliance vehicle at the NASA Advisory Council meeting in Cleveland this afternoon.

“It will be the Atlas 5 carrying Mars 2020 to Mars,” Green said.

ULA’s Atlas 5 and Delta 4-Heavy and SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy were studied as possible launch vehicles for the intermediate-to-heavy classed payload. It was not immediately known if SpaceX submitted a bid for this launch contract.

But, currently, Atlas 5 is the only launch vehicle that holds a NASA certification for launching the nuclear batteries made of plutonium that will power the 2,000-pound rover.

[selvaarchi]

It is now official. NASA Awards Launch Services Contract for Mars 2020 Rover Mission

http://www.marsdaily.com/reports/NAS...ssion_999.html

NASA has selected United Launch Services LLC of Centennial, Colorado, to provide launch services for a mission that will address high-priority science goals for the agency's Journey to Mars.

Mars 2020 is targeted for launch in July 2020 aboard an Atlas V 541 rocket from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The rover will conduct geological assessments of its landing site on Mars, determine the habitability of the environment, search for signs of ancient Martian life, and assess natural resources and hazards for future human explorers.

[selvaarchi]

Wow Mars 2020 mission is not only about exploration but also carrying a crucial experiment for human exploration of Mars. It will try and produce oxygen.

http://www.marsdaily.com/reports/NAS...lanet_999.html

NASA's Mars 2020 rover will not only investigate the Red Planet, searching for evidence of past life on Mars, but it also expected to lay foundations for future human exploration of the planet. One of the mission's instrument called MOXIE will have a special task, testing technology essential for Mars colonization.

"MOXIE is one of nine instruments but it is the only one that is relevant to human exploration," Donald Rapp, one of the co-investigators of MOXIE, told Astrowatch.net.

[bknight]

Now this will be a possible procedure for Mars colonies should it work as advertised.

[selvaarchi]

NASA tests the eyes of the Mars 2020 rover.

http://www.marsdaily.com/reports/NAS...ystem_999.html

NASA tested new "eyes" for its next Mars rover mission on a rocket built by Masten Space Systems in Mojave, California, thanks in part to NASA's Flight Opportunities Program, or FOP.

The agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, is leading development of the Mars 2020 rover and its Lander Vision System, or LVS. In 2014, the prototype vision system launched 1,066 feet (325 meters) into the air aboard Masten's rocket-powered "Xombie" test platform and helped guide the rocket to a precise landing at a predesignated target. LVS flew as part of a larger system of experimental landing technologies called the Autonomous Descent and Ascent Powered-flight Testbed, or ADAPT.

LVS, a camera-based navigation system, photographs the terrain beneath a descending spacecraft and matches it with onboard maps allowing the craft to detect its location relative to landing hazards, such as boulders and outcroppings.

The system can then direct the craft toward a safe landing at its primary target site or divert touchdown toward better terrain if there are hazards in the approaching target area. Image matching is aided by an inertial measurement unit that monitors orientation

[selvaarchi]

NASA has narrowed the number of landing sites to 3.

http://marsmobile.jpl.nasa.gov/news/...-for-mars-2020

"Participants in a landing site workshop for NASA's upcoming Mars 2020 mission have recommended three locations on the Red Planet for further evaluation. The three potential landing sites for NASA's next Mars rover include Northeast Syrtis (a very ancient portion of Mars' surface), Jezero crater, (once home to an ancient Martian lake), and Columbia Hills (potentially home to an ancient hot spring, explored by NASA's Spirit rover)."

Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk

[Superluminal]

NASA has narrowed the number of landing sites to 3.

http://marsmobile.jpl.nasa.gov/news/...-for-mars-2020

"Participants in a landing site workshop for NASA's upcoming Mars 2020 mission have recommended three locations on the Red Planet for further evaluation. The three potential landing sites for NASA's next Mars rover include Northeast Syrtis (a very ancient portion of Mars' surface), Jezero crater, (once home to an ancient Martian lake), and Columbia Hills (potentially home to an ancient hot spring, explored by NASA's Spirit rover)."

Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk

All intriguing, my vote is for Jezero. Gusev would be interesting. Take a pair of jumper cables and give Spirit a jump start. Be great to have two rovers working in the same place.

[Glom]

All intriguing, my vote is for Jezero. Gusev would be interesting. Take a pair of jumper cables and give Spirit a jump start. Be great to have two rovers working in the same place.

More likely they'd be the target of a Beeching axe.

[Trebuchet]

All intriguing, my vote is for Jezero. Gusev would be interesting. Take a pair of jumper cables and give Spirit a jump start. Be great to have two rovers working in the same place.

The latter was my first thought as well.

[selvaarchi]

Mars Rover 2020 will have 23 cameras

http://www.popularmechanics.com/spac...ars-than-ever/

If you like pictures of Mars, NASA has good news. The agency has announced that mission's rover will carry more cameras into space than any other, twenty-three.

"Camera technology keeps improving," says Justin Maki of JPL, Mars 2020's imaging scientist and deputy principal investigator of the Mastcam-Z instrument, in a press statement. "Each successive mission is able to utilize these improvements, with better performance and lower cost."

The twenty-three cameras are only the latest chapter in the consistent progress NASA has made on the ocular front. In 1997, when Pathfinder touched down on the Martian surface it came with five cameras. Patherfinder's rover Sojourner carried three of them. The twin Spirit and Opportunity rovers from 2004 each had ten cameras, and the current Curiosity rover carries seventeen.

[selvaarchi]

Mars 2020 Mission performs first supersonic parachute test.

http://www.marsdaily.com/reports/Mar..._Test_999.html

Landing on Mars is difficult and not always successful. Well-designed advance testing helps. An ambitious NASA Mars rover mission set to launch in 2020 will rely on a special parachute to slow the spacecraft down as it enters the Martian atmosphere at over 12,000 mph (5.4 kilometers per second). Preparations for this mission have provided, for the first time, dramatic video of the parachute opening at supersonic speed.

The Mars 2020 mission will seek signs of ancient Martian life by investigating evidence in place and by caching drilled samples of Martian rocks for potential future return to Earth.

The mission's parachute-testing series, the Advanced Supersonic Parachute Inflation Research Experiment, or ASPIRE, began with a rocket launch and upper-atmosphere flight last month from the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center's Wallops Flight Facility in Wallops Island, Virginia.

[selvaarchi]

NASA has narrowed the number of landing sites to 3.

http://marsmobile.jpl.nasa.gov/news/...-for-mars-2020

"Participants in a landing site workshop for NASA's upcoming Mars 2020 mission have recommended three locations on the Red Planet for further evaluation. The three potential landing sites for NASA's next Mars rover include Northeast Syrtis (a very ancient portion of Mars' surface), Jezero crater, (once home to an ancient Martian lake), and Columbia Hills (potentially home to an ancient hot spring, explored by NASA's Spirit rover)."

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The process to narrow the landing site selection.

http://www.planetary.org/blogs/guest...ing-sites.html

When you see an image from Mars do you ever contemplate what it took to bring it to you? You might imagine the feats of engineering that were required, but you may not have considered the lengthy process it took just to pick a place to land. For several years now, scientists from around the world have been gathering to discuss where we will send the next rover, Mars 2020. There have now been three formal landing site selection meetings, but even before those happen, individual scientists working on mission instrument teams have been devoting huge amounts of time to investigate the merits of the possible sites.

[selvaarchi]

Wow - can you picture a helicopter flying around Mars. This might come true if NASA decides soon whether the aerial drone will accompany the agency’s rover 2020.

https://spaceflightnow.com/2018/03/1...rs-2020-rover/

Testing of a lightweight robotic helicopter designed to fly in the alien atmosphere of Mars has produced encouraging results in recent months, and NASA officials expect to decide soon whether the aerial drone will accompany the agency’s next rover to the red planet set for liftoff in 2020.

Engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory have worked on the helicopter design for several years, modifying principles used in drones that fly in Earth’s atmosphere for the more challenging conditions at Mars. The atmospheric pressure on Mars is less than 1 percent that of Earth, and the Martian gravity field is about three-eighths as strong as it is on Earth.

Jim Watzin, director of NASA’s robotic Mars exploration program at the agency’s headquarters, said last month that an engineering model of the helicopter has completed 86 minutes of flying time in a test chamber configured to simulate the Martian atmosphere.

“The system has been built, it’s been ground tested, and then we put it into a chamber that was backfilled at Mars atmosphere (conditions),” Watzin said Feb. 20 in a presentation to the Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group, a panel of scientists that assists NASA in planning Mars missions. “Some parts were removed from the helicopter to compensate for the 1g (gravity) field to get the proper relationship of mass and acceleration at Mars, and we did controlled takeoffs, slewing, translations, hovers and controlled landings in the chamber. We’ve done that multiple times.”

[selvaarchi]

Wow - can you picture a helicopter flying around Mars. This might come true if NASA decides soon whether the aerial drone will accompany the agency’s rover 2020.

https://spaceflightnow.com/2018/03/1...rs-2020-rover/

It is coming true

http://www.marsdaily.com/reports/Mar...ssion_999.html

NASA is sending a helicopter to Mars. The Mars Helicopter, a small, autonomous rotorcraft, will travel with the agency's Mars 2020 rover mission, currently scheduled to launch in July 2020, to demonstrate the viability and potential of heavier-than-air vehicles on the Red Planet.

"NASA has a proud history of firsts," said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine. "The idea of a helicopter flying the skies of another planet is thrilling. The Mars Helicopter holds much promise for our future science, discovery, and exploration missions to Mars." U.S. Rep. John Culberson of Texas echoed Bridenstine's appreciation of the impact of American firsts on the future of exploration and discovery.

[selvaarchi]

"Mastcam-Z Flight Hardware!"

http://www.planetary.org/blogs/guest...-hardware.html

After a more-than-four-year adventure spanning endless reviews, PowerPoint slides, CAD models, and engineering models, I'm super excited to report that the flight versions of the Mars 2020 rover Mastcam-Z left and right cameras, as well as their electronics assembly that will go inside the rover, have been fully assembled! Their first test images look great, and every reasonable indication so far is that the careful planning of the design and fabrication of the hardware has resulted in cameras that will meet our science and mission requirements! Woo-hoo!

[Roger E. Moore]

Helicopters on Mars, but still no submarines on Titan?

[selvaarchi]

One thing at a time. Don't be so greedy or your wishes will not come true

[selvaarchi]

Have wheels - ready to travel.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=7432

In this image, taken on June 13, 2019, engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, install the starboard legs and wheels - otherwise known as the mobility suspension - on the Mars 2020 rover. They installed the port suspension later that day.

"Now that's a Mars rover," said David Gruel, the Mars 2020 assembly, test, and launch operations manager at JPL. "With the suspension on, not only does it look like a rover, but we have almost all our big-ticket items for integration in our rearview mirror - if our rover had one."

[Trebuchet]

Not the flight wheels, apparently. I assume those will be beefed up a bit from the Curiosity ones.

[Van Rijn]

Not the flight wheels, apparently. I assume those will be beefed up a bit from the Curiosity ones.

Yes, from here:

https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/mission/rover/body/

Engineers redesigned the Mars 2020 wheels to be more robust due to the wear and tear the Curiosity rover wheels endured while driving over sharp, pointy rocks. Mars 2020's wheels are narrower than Curiosity's, but bigger in diameter and made of thicker aluminum.

The combination of the larger instrument suite, new Sampling and Caching System, and modified wheels makes Mars 2020 heavier than its predecessor, Curiosity.

And here with a little more detail:

https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/...ars-2020-rover

NASA has found the surface of Mars somewhat “sharper” than it expected. Curiosity’s machined aluminum wheels have been dented and punctured by rocks on the Martian surface, and engineers worry that one or more of them will fail and strand the robot. Mars 2020 is about 25 percent heavier than Curiosity, so Curiosity-style wheels would have been even worse on Mars 2020.

To mitigate wheel damage, Mars 2020 will have a more robust design (20.7 inches, or 52.5 centimeters in diameter) with thicker walls and stronger aluminum. They’re also a bit wider and have a larger diameter. A series of titanium spokes will improve internal support as well. The wheels seen in the above image are engineering samples — NASA will replace them with rigorously tested final versions in the coming months.

[Trebuchet]

Thanks, although the two sources contradict each other; one saying the new wheels are wider and the other narrower.