NASA's Mars 2020 Perseverance rover
- Posted By
10Pointer
- Categories
Science & Technology
- Published
1st Aug, 2020
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- NASA has recently launched its Mars 2020 Perseverance a fourth-generation rover.
- This is the world’s third and final Mars launch of the summer (UAE’s Hope Probe and China’s Tianwen-1)
- This Perseverance rover will carry a unique instrument, MOXIE or Mars Oxygen ISRU Experiment.
- It is for the first time will manufacture molecular oxygen on Mars using carbon dioxide from the carbon-dioxide-rich atmosphere.
- If oxygen can be successfully extracted on Mars in some significant scale, this can have two direct advantages:
- The oxygen can be used for human visitors to Mars, and second, the oxygen can be used to manufacture rocket fuel for the return journey.
- Perseverance will carry Ingenuity, the first-ever helicopter to fly on Mars.
- This is the first time NASA will fly a helicopter on another planet or satellite.
- Perseverance is the planned first step to bring back rock samples from Mars for analysis in sophisticated laboratories on Earth.
- U.S. is the only country to safely put a spacecraft on Mars
- It is seeking its ninth successful landing on the planet
