Most Successful Rovers on Mars By NASA (Edited "Perseverance") - By Tushar Ghudaiya

American Mars Rovers :-

Humans have changed this world a lot from its beginning till now. We the humans have a brilliant sense of development in our super natural mind. As a result we have developed us and our surrounding a lot. Earlier, in late 20^th century not a single person could think of a world in which today we are living in. We should be thankful of god who have made us. Many times I think that how fast we’re developing, not even 30 years ago any one could even dreamt of watching this Hi-tech machines that are with us now like smartphones, LED TVs, Compact laptops, Humanoids, and many more. Humans have got many achievements in technology. Science have been working more and more day and night on achieving this whole universe too. As a result, our scientists have won many successful researches which have concluded that it is possible to enter in space and explore other planets like ours in this universe. It was begin with launching satellites in space. NASA launched its first satellite and after it many other space organizations started sending their satellites too. And then a thing happened that in the history first ever human entered in the space who was Russia’s astronaut Yuri Gagarin. He shocked each and every person on earth with his and his country’s achievement. But they all didn’t knew about the upcoming human’s achievement which was witnessed by the first man to step on Moon who was Neil Armstrong. It was the first achievement of Humans to successful land on other planet or natural satellite. Then in 1998, NASA send first ever machine rover which was a fully remote controlled rover and after 10 months it successfully landed on Mars in the year 1999. NASA was appreciated by all over the world because it was the first satellite launch to a very long distance which could also be failed but it actually landed over it but unfortunately after landing and covering 0.1 km distance the connection was lost by the team on earth and it was declared as a shutdown of this mission, everyone was very sad with this failure. It was the first ever rover mission to Mars which was a failure, it didn’t even completed its mission and before that it loses its connection. In this Blog we’re going to talk about these Rovers which not even completed their mission but also gathered many important information regarding life on Mars and many other things. Currently there are 5 rovers that have been launched on Mars by NASA which also includes the first failure mission which is not included in this blog. So let’s begin with these rovers .

( EDITED ):-

As of April 22, 2021, Perseverance has been active on Mars for 61 sols (63 Earth days) since its landing on February 18, 2021, at 20:55 UTC.

NASA’s Super Rovers

In this blog we’re going to talk about 4 main successful rovers that were created by NASA:-

1. Spirit Rover

Spirit, also known as MER-A (Mars Exploration Rover – A) or MER-2, is a robotic rover on Mars, active from 2004 to 2010.It was one of two rovers of NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Mission. It landed successfully within the impact crater Gusev on Mars at 04:35 Ground UTC on January 4, 2004, three weeks before its twin, Opportunity (MER-B), which landed on the other side of the planet. Its name was chosen through a NASA-sponsored student essay competition. The rover became stuck in a "sand trap" in late 2009 at an angle that hampered recharging of its batteries; its last communication with Earth was sent on March 22, 2010.

The rover completed its planned 90-sol mission. Aided by cleaning events that resulted in more energy from its solar panels, Spirit went on to function effectively over twenty times longer than NASA planners expected. Spirit also logged 7.73 km (4.8 mi) of driving instead of the planned 600 m (0.4 mi),allowing more extensive geological analysis of Martian rocks and planetary surface features. Initial scientific results from the first phase of the mission (the 90-sol prime mission) were published in a special issue of the journal Science.

On May 1, 2009 (5 years, 3 months, 27 Earth days after landing; 21.6 times the planned mission duration), Spirit became stuck in soft sand. This was not the first of the mission's "embedding events" and for the following eight months NASA carefully analysed the situation, running Earth-based theoretical and practical simulations, and finally programming the rover to make extrication drives in an attempt to free itself. These efforts continued until January 26, 2010 when NASA officials announced that the rover was likely irrecoverably obstructed by its location in soft sand, though it continued to perform scientific research from its current location.

The rover continued in a stationary science platform role until communication with Spirit stopped on March 22, 2010 (sol 2208). JPL continued to attempt to regain contact until May 24, 2011, when NASA announced that efforts to communicate with the unresponsive rover had ended, calling the mission complete. A formal farewell took place at NASA headquarters shortly thereafter.

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Exploration Rover project for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington.

2. Opportunity Rover

Opportunity, also known as MER-B (Mars Exploration Rover – B) or MER-1, and nicknamed "Oppy", is a robotic rover that was active on Mars from 2004 until the middle of 2018. Launched on July 7, 2003, as part of NASA's Mars Exploration Rover program, it landed in Meridiani Planum on January 25, 2004, three weeks after its twin Spirit (MER-A) touched down on the other side of the planet. With a planned 90-sol duration of activity (slightly more than 90 Earth days), Spirit functioned until it got stuck in 2009 and ceased communications in 2010, while Opportunity was able to stay operational for 5111 sols after landing, maintaining its power and key systems through continual recharging of its batteries using solar power, and hibernating during events such as dust storms to save power. This careful operation allowed Opportunity to exceed its operating plan by 14 years, 46 days (in Earth time), 55 times its designed lifespan. By June 10, 2018, when it last contacted NASA, the rover had travelled a distance of 45.16 kilometres (28.06 miles).

Mission highlights included the initial 90-sol mission, finding extramartian meteorites such as Heat Shield Rock (Meridiani Planum meteorite), and over two years of exploring and studying Victoria crater. The rover survived moderate dust storms and in 2011 reached Endeavour crater, which has been described as a "second landing site". The Opportunity mission is considered one of NASA's most successful ventures.

Due to the planetary 2018 dust storm on Mars, Opportunity ceased communications on June 10 and entered hibernation on June 12, 2018. It was hoped it would reboot once the weather cleared, but it did not, suggesting either a catastrophic failure or that a layer of dust had covered its solar panels. NASA hoped to re-establish contact with the rover, citing a windy period that could potentially clean off its solar panels.

On February 13, 2019, NASA officials declared that the Opportunity mission was complete, after the spacecraft had failed to respond to over 1,000 signals sent since August 2018.

3. Curiosity Rover

Curiosity is a car-sized rover designed to explore the crater Gale on Mars as part of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission (MSL). Curiosity was launched from Cape Canaveral on November 26, 2011, at 15:02 UTC and landed on Aeolis Palus inside Gale on Mars on August 6, 2012, 05:17 UTC. The Bradbury Landing site was less than 2.4 km (1.5 mi) from the center of the rover's touchdown target after a 560 million km (350 million mi) journey. The rover's goals include an investigation of the Martian climate and geology; assessment of whether the selected field site inside Gale has ever offered environmental conditions favourable for microbial life, including investigation of the role of water; and planetary habitability studies in preparation for human exploration.

In December 2012, Curiosity's two-year mission was extended indefinitely, and on August 5, 2017, NASA celebrated the fifth anniversary of the Curiosity rover landing. The rover is still operational, and as of March 23, 2020, Curiosity has been on Mars for 2712 sols (2786 total days) since landing on August 6, 2012.

Curiosity's design serves as the basis for the planned Mars 2020 rover, which will carry different scientific instruments.

Perseverance (Updated)

Perseverance, nicknamed Percy, is a car-sized Mars rover designed to explore the crater Jezero on Mars as part of NASA's Mars 2020 mission. It was manufactured by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and launched on July 30, 2020, at 11:50 UTC. Confirmation that the rover successfully landed on Mars was received on February 18, 2021, at 20:55 UTC. As of April 22, 2021, Perseverance has been active on Mars for 61 sols (63 Earth days) since its landing. Following the rover's arrival, NASA named the landing site Octavia E. Butler Landing.

Mars 2020 JPL patch

Perseverance has a similar design to its predecessor rover, Curiosity, from which it was moderately upgraded. It carries seven primary payload instruments, 19 cameras, and two microphones. The rover is also carrying the mini-helicopter Ingenuity
Ingenuity helicopter deployed on the Martian surface

, or Ginny, an experimental aircraft and technology showcase that made the first powered flight on another planet on April 19, 2021.

Family portrait on Rover

Overview of the landing site with spacecraft debris (satellite image, February 2021)

Mars Perseverance rover – Octavia E. Butler Landing Site In Jezero Crater (5 March 2021)

The rover's goals include identifying ancient Martian environments capable of supporting life, seeking out evidence of former microbial life existing in those environments, collecting rock and soil samples to store on the Martian surface, and testing oxygen production from the Martian atmosphere to prepare for future crewed missions.

Rover's first wheel tracks

Rover's first test drive (animation-gif)

"Send Your Name to Mars"

NASA's "Send Your Name to Mars" campaign invited people from around the world to submit their names to travel aboard the agency's next rover to Mars. 10,932,295 names were submitted. The names were etched by an electron beam onto three fingernail-sized silicon chips, along with the essays of the 155 finalists in NASA's "Name the Rover" contest. The first name to be engraved was "Angel Santos". The three chips share space on an anodized plate with a laser engraved graphic representing Earth, Mars, and the Sun. The rays emanating from the Sun contain the phrase "Explore As One" written in Morse code. The plate was then mounted on the rover on 26 March 2020.

"Send Your Name" placard attached to Perseverance.

A sample of a souvenir boarding pass for those who registered their names to be flown aboard the Perseverance rover as part of the "Send Your Name to Mars" campaign

Parachute with coded message

Perseverance's parachute

The orange-and-white parachute used to land the rover on Mars contained a coded message that was deciphered by Twitter users. NASA's systems engineer Ian Clark used binary code to hide the message "dare mighty things" in the parachute color pattern. The 70-foot-wide parachute consisted of 80 strips of fabric that form a hemisphere-shape canopy, and each strip consisted of four pieces. Dr. Clark thus had 320 pieces with which to encode the message. He also included the GPS coordinates for the JPL's headquarters in Pasadena, California (34°11’58” N 118°10’31” W). Clark said that only six people knew about the message before landing. The code was deciphered in just a few hours after the image was presented by Perseverance's team.

"Dare mighty things" is a quote attributed to U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt and is the unofficial motto of JPL. It adorns many of the JPL center's walls.

Mars 2020 selfie containing both perseverance rover and ingenuity

Panoramic 360° view from Perseverance's landing site, stitched together from more than 100 individual images.

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This was all about Four most successful rovers of NASA. I hope our technology grows like this only and one day we will also got a chance to visit that red planet which is now very wondrous to us. Meanwhile I remembered a Quote by a great person that “The Science of today is the Technology of tomorrow”.

I have some cool pics of the Red planet “MARS” , Have a look on these pics you too.

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