The Mars 2020 mission from NASA, which includes the Perseverance rover and the Ingenuity helicopter drone, is already halfway to the Red Planet.
Since it was launched on July 30, 2020, the mission to Mars has logged 146.3 million miles, or 235.4 million kilometers, of travel away from Earth. Coincidentally, it is the same exact distance the mission still has to travel before reaching the Martian atmosphere. The flight that carries Perseverance is expected to arrive at its destination on February 18, 2021.
"At 1:40 p.m. Pacific Time today, our spacecraft will have just as many miles in its metaphorical rearview mirror as it will out its metaphorical windshield," announced Julie Kangas, a navigator with the Perseverance mission based at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California, in a press release from the space agency.
"While I don't think there will be cake, especially since most of us are working from home, it's still a pretty neat milestone. Next stop, Jezero Crater," the NASA navigator added, referring to the Mars crater and target landing site.
I'm officially halfway to the Red Planet. Since launch, I've logged 146 million miles (235 million km), and have the same to go. System checkouts are going well as I barrel toward my date with Mars: Feb 18, 2021. https://t.co/uA1s8gd4ce #CountdownToMars pic.twitter.com/nCISUVjCUi — NASA's Perseverance Mars Rover (@NASAPersevere) October 27, 2020
Halfway a Curved Path
The Sun's gravitational force plays an important part in the movement of Earth and Mars, like any other planet in the Solar System. It also dictates how the trajectories of space missions are plotted out. Therefore, the Mars 2020 mission also follows an elliptical trajectory instead of a straight point-to-point travel between the two planets.
"Although we're halfway into the distance we need to travel to Mars, the rover is not halfway between the two worlds," Kangas added. She also explained that in a straight line distance, Mars remains 17.9 million miles, or 28.8 million kilometers, ahead of Perseverance. Meanwhile, in the same context, Earth is already 26.6 million miles, or 42.7 million kilometers, behind the mission.
At the latest logged position, a transmission from the JPL mission control takes about 2 minutes and 22 seconds to reach the spacecraft through the Deep Space Network - an international array of giant antennas that allow interplanetary communications. When the Mars 2020 mission lands on the Red Planet, it will have travelled a total of 292.5 million miles, or more than 470.8 million kilometers. At that point, Mars will be 130 million miles from Earth and the transmission time from the JPL command will take about eleven and a half minutes to reach Perseverance.
The Perseverance Rover
The Perseverance rover is sent to Mars to investigate a relevant ancient site on Mars for astrobiological studies. Its target landing site, the Jezero crater, is widely believed to have been flooded with water once, featuring a fan-delta deposit rich in clay-like materials. It is equipped with seven specialized instruments to analyze the geology of the Martian surface, attempting to draw insights on its past environmental conditions. With these pieces of data, Perseverance is expected to help pave the way for future manned crews that will explore, and perhaps colonize, the Red Planet.
Although Perseverance can collect and analyze samples, NASA and its international partners are looking into future missions that will collect Martian samples and take them back to Earth for further studies.
Check out more news and information about Mars in Science Times.
