Our Perseverance rover takes up residence on Mars …
The space station’s next commercial resupply mission …
And a new date for a commercial crew test flight … a few of the
stories to tell you about – This Week at NASA!
“(Applause) Navigation has confirmed that the parachute has deployed and
we are seeing significant deceleration ...”
On Feb. 18, our Mars 2020 Perseverance rover mission safely touched down on Mars.
“Touchdown confirmed! Perseverance is safely
on the surface of Mars, ready to begin seeking the signs of past life! (applause)”
The rover landed in Jezero Crater, a region targeted for the excellent opportunity it presents
to accomplish the rover’s primary goal of finding signs of past microbial life.
Within minutes the rover’s first images from Mars reached Earth,
confirming Perseverance was A-okay. And even more images followed, including amazing views
of the rover’s descent captured by our Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, and stunning views
from onboard the lander showing how descent appeared from the rover’s point-of-view.
“You have to somehow believe that you can do it, or else you’d never try to put a car
on the surface of Mars, right? It’s crazy. But there really is no good way to describe
that moment when it’s over and you hear those words, ‘touchdown confirmed’.”
This is the most advanced NASA rover to make the nearly 300 million mile trip to Mars. It’s
loaded with groundbreaking technology to help pave the way for future human exploration of
the Red Planet. This includes the ability to collect and leave cached samples of Martian
rock and regolith that a future mission, being planned by NASA and the European Space Agency,
could retrieve and bring back to Earth for study.
“This mission is amazing on its own. Science, technology, and caching samples
to bring back to Earth, but it’s also part of our bigger exploration plans, right?
Which involve preparing for eventual human missions to Mars.”
While Perseverance works to characterize the region’s geology and past climate, there are also
plans for the Ingenuity experimental helicopter to make the first controlled flight on another
planet. Having a flying robotic explorer could be a huge benefit for a human mission on Mars.
“Being able to fly will enable us to get to places that we cannot get to with
rovers and astronauts, like sides of steep cliffs, deep inside crevices;
areas of high scientific interest. It will be game-changing!”
Perseverance will undergo several weeks of testing
before it begins its two-year science investigation of Mars.
The Feb. 20 liftoff of Northrop Grumman’s Antares rocket and Cygnus spacecraft from our Wallops
Flight Facility marked the start of the company’s 15th resupply mission to the International Space
Station for NASA. The Cygnus, named after late NASA mathematician, Katherine Johnson,
is loaded with about 8,000 pounds of scientific research,
crew supplies, and hardware for the station crew.
An uncrewed Russian Progress supply ship arrived at the space station early Wednesday after
launching from Kazakhstan on Feb. 14 with just over a ton of nitrogen, water and propellant.
The Progress will be used to detach a Russian docking module later this year
to prepare for the arrival of a new multipurpose laboratory module.
NASA and Boeing are now targeting no earlier than Friday, April 2,
for the launch of Orbital Flight Test-2, or OFT-2,
the company’s second uncrewed flight test of the CST-100 Starliner spacecraft to the International
Space Station. OFT-2 is an end-to-end test to prove the Starliner system is ready to begin
flying astronauts to and from the space station as part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program.
A lightweight robotic crane first designed, built, and tested at our Langley Research
Center more than a decade ago, is being upgraded with a suite of quick-interchange tools – giving
it Swiss Army knife-like capabilities that could prove quite useful on future missions to the Moon.
It can be used as a hoist or forklift to lift payloads weighing as much as an elephant,
or for jobs requiring a bit more dexterity – such as scooping regolith,
or welding. The technology is also scalable to fit any sized lander, vehicle, or surface application.
That’s what’s up this week @NASA … For more on these and other stories,
follow us on the web at nasa.gov/twan.