{"id":17595,"date":"2021-02-18T01:57:50","date_gmt":"2021-02-17T17:57:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/how-the-pandemic-is-changing-the-protocol-for-nasas-mars-landing-and-how-to-watch-it-happen\/"},"modified":"2021-02-18T01:57:50","modified_gmt":"2021-02-17T17:57:50","slug":"how-the-pandemic-is-changing-the-protocol-for-nasas-mars-landing-and-how-to-watch-it-happen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/how-the-pandemic-is-changing-the-protocol-for-nasas-mars-landing-and-how-to-watch-it-happen\/","title":{"rendered":"How the pandemic is changing the protocol for NASA\u2019s Mars landing \u2014 and how to watch it happen"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Mallory
First Mode senior systems engineer Mallory Lefland is part of the team that will be monitoring the entry, descent and landing of NASA\u2019s Perseverance rover from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. (NASA Photo \/ Bobak Ferdowsi)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Veteran spacecraft engineer Chris Voorhees has witnessed six Mars landings in the course of his career, and he\u2019s playing a role in the next one as president of a Seattle-based engineering firm called First Mode.<\/p>\n

But even though First Mode has been helping NASA ensure that its Perseverance rover will get to the surface of Mars safely on Thursday, Voorhees will experience it in the same way millions of others around the world will: from home, watching a live stream via YouTube.<\/p>\n

At least he\u2019ll be munching on the traditional good-luck peanuts. \u201cI feel weird if I don\u2019t do it,\u201d Voorhees said.<\/p>\n

This Mars mission is already weird enough \u2014 and not just because it would be the first mission to store up samples for eventual return to Earth, and the first to try flying a mini-helicopter over Mars.<\/p>\n

\"NASA
\nWatch live coverage of the
\nPerseverance rover landing
\nfrom NASA TV and Seattle\u2019s
\nMuseum of Flight<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Because of the yearlong COVID-19 pandemic, the hundreds of scientists and engineers behind the Perseverance rover mission have had to work almost exclusively from home. On the big day, only a minimal crew of ground controllers will be on duty at NASA\u2019s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.<\/p>\n

Mallory Lefland, a JPL veteran who\u2019s now a senior systems engineer at First Mode, will be there as part of the mission\u2019s team for entry, descent and landing, or EDL.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost people won\u2019t be on lab, working their shift, until 24 hours before landing,\u201d she said last week during a mission preview hosted by Seattle\u2019s Museum of Flight.<\/p>\n

Whether they\u2019re working at JPL or working from home, the people in charge of the $2.7 billion mission will serve mostly as spectators during the final minutes of the rover\u2019s seven-month, 300 million-mile journey to Mars.<\/p>\n

The capsule containing the rover will be on its own as it goes through a sequence known as the \u201cseven minutes of terror.\u201d Because of the finite speed of light, it takes more than 11 minutes for signals to travel from Mars to Earth. That means the rover will have finished its landing sequence before the team at JPL even knows it started.<\/p>\n

On the way down, the capsule will have to endure temperatures of more than 2,300 degrees Fahrenheit as it slows itself down from a speed of more than 12,000 mph. It\u2019ll have to pop off its heat shield and unfurl a parachute while it\u2019s falling at supersonic speeds. Thanks to the work done by Lefland and scores of others, the spacecraft has been programmed to guide itself to an acceptable landing site within Mars\u2019 Jezero Crater, which is thought to have been flooded with water eons ago.<\/p>\n

Thrusters from Redmond play critical roles<\/h4>\n
\"\"
Matt Dawson, an engineer at Aerojet Rocketdyne\u2019s facility in Redmond, Wash., processes a set of MR-80 rocket engines for NASA\u2019s Perseverance rover mission. (Aerojet Rocketdyne Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The craziest part of Perseverance\u2019s plunge comes when a descent stage fires up eight rocket thrusters and basically hovers above the landing site while the 1-ton rover is lowered to the surface at the end of a set of cables. When the rover touches down, the cables will be cut, and the \u201csky crane\u201d will fly itself away to a crash landing.<\/p>\n

The MR-80B thrusters on the descent stage were built for NASA at Aerojet Rocketdyne\u2019s manufacturing facility in Redmond, Wash. \u201cThose are probably the most impressive engines we do out of the Redmond site,\u201d said Fred Wilson, director of marketing and business development for the Redmond operation.<\/p>\n

Members of Aerojet\u2019s 420-employee Redmond team also built the thrusters that will help guide the capsule through the initial stages of its descent. Still more Aerojet thrusters came into play during earlier phases of the Perseverance mission.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would guess maybe half of the people on our site have had some involvement in this mission, whether you\u2019re someone working on the contracts or accounting side, or somebody who was machining a part, or buying a procured item, or the inspector looking over somebody\u2019s shoulder. \u2026 A lot of people have touched this program one way or another,\u201d Wilson said.<\/p>\n

Aerojet delivered its thrusters to NASA long before COVID-19 hit, but social distancing is nevertheless affecting how employees will experience the landing. Only about a third of Aerojet\u2019s Redmond workforce is on site.<\/p>\n

Traditionally, Aerojet hosts a group gathering to watch Mars landings. \u201cThis is the whole show for the Redmond team,\u201d Wilson said. But this time, employees will have to watch the show on their own \u2014 assuming they\u2019re not hard at work building the thrusters for yet another NASA mission.<\/p>\n

First Mode expands its frontiers<\/h4>\n
\"First
First Mode team members Clara Sekowski and Rhae Adams do preliminary work on spaceflight hardware at the company\u2019s headquarters in Seattle\u2019s Belltown neighborhood. (First Mode Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

First Mode is also spreading out its 80-employee workforce, and that\u2019s not just because of social distancing. Voorhees told GeekWire that over the past year, the three-year-old company has established an office in the Australian city of Perth to capitalize on the global market for engineering services related to terrestrial mining.<\/p>\n

For more than a year, First Mode \u2014 which traces its origins to an asteroid mining venture called Planetary Resources \u2014 has been working on a hydrogen-powered ore-hauling system for South Africa\u2019s Anglo American mining concern.<\/p>\n

First Mode\u2019s engineers are also pitching in on NASA\u2019s Psyche mission to study a metal-rich asteroid, as well as on a proposal for a long-distance moon rover. But for now, the Perseverance mission to Mars tops the to-do list.<\/p>\n

Several First Mode employees, including Lefland, worked on the mission\u2019s terrain-relative navigation system \u2014 and on the procedures for anticipating potential problems and evaluating mission performance.<\/p>\n

Lefland is due to be on console alongside her former JPL colleagues for the landing, and the protective measures put in place due to COVID-19 have added plenty of peculiarities to the job. \u201cIt\u2019s been a strange experience, to say the least,\u201d Lefland acknowledged.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just that there\u2019ll be fewer people at mission control: They\u2019ll also be more isolated. \u201cYou need to make sure that no person is a single point of failure,\u201d Lefland explained. \u201cWe\u2019re now worried about an entire shift going away because someone gets sick on that team, and you\u2019re worried that everyone will get sick. So we really had to segment people.\u201d<\/p>\n

For that reason, there\u2019ll be strict limits on contacts between team members involved in different phases of the mission.<\/p>\n

Lefland will be watching for any anomalies that might occur as the Perseverance spacecraft transitions from its cruise phase to entry, descent and landing.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis happens about 45 minutes before entry, and I spend a lot of time sweating all of the weird things that can happen when you do that transition within the software,\u201d she said. \u201cOnce we pass that transition, and nothing goes wrong, I will take a very deep breath and be able to move on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Scientists do their jobs at a distance<\/h4>\n