{"id":17680,"date":"2020-06-17T18:19:33","date_gmt":"2020-06-17T10:19:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/perseverance-rover-will-go-to-mars-with-a-monument-to-covid-19-medical-teams\/"},"modified":"2020-06-17T18:19:33","modified_gmt":"2020-06-17T10:19:33","slug":"perseverance-rover-will-go-to-mars-with-a-monument-to-covid-19-medical-teams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/perseverance-rover-will-go-to-mars-with-a-monument-to-covid-19-medical-teams\/","title":{"rendered":"Perseverance rover will go to Mars with a monument to COVID-19 medical teams"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_569467\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-569467\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full-width wp-image-569467\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/200617-plate2-630x376.jpg\" alt=\"COVID-19 Perseverance Plate\" width=\"630\" height=\"376\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/200617-plate2-630x376.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/200617-plate2-1260x751.jpg 1260w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/200617-plate2-768x458.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/200617-plate2-1536x916.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/200617-plate2.jpg 1803w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" id=\"caption-attachment-569467\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">An engineer attaches a plaque paying tribute to medical workers on the chassis of NASA\u2019s Perseverance rover, which is due for launch to Mars as early as next month. (NASA via YouTube)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>When NASA\u2019s Perseverance rover lands in Mars\u2019 Jezero Crater next February, it\u2019ll be carrying a tribute to the medical community and their work to quell the coronavirus pandemic.<\/p>\n<p>A 3-by-5-inch aluminum plaque, showing planet Earth being supported by the ancient staff-and-serpent symbol of the medical profession, will grace the left side of the rover chassis.<\/p>\n<p>Matt Wallace, the mission\u2019s deputy project manager at NASA\u2019s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said the plaque recognizes the sacrifices that have been made by medical workers \u2014 and also by members of the mission team, who had to go to extraordinary lengths to keep the $2.4 billion project on track for launch as early as July 20.<\/p>\n<h4 class=\"callout clearfix\">Coronavirus Live Updates:&nbsp;The latest COVID-19 developments in Seattle and the world of tech<\/h4>\n<p>\u201cThe community, and the country, and around the globe, everybody had to deal with this,\u201d Wallace said today during a briefing about the mission. \u201cI asked the team a couple of months ago if they would like to do something to symbolize and mark these challenges that we faced, and they designed something that we call a COVID-19 Perseverance Plate.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Perseverance was christened by a seventh-grader in early March, when the coronavirus outbreak was just beginning to take the world in its grip. Back then, deputy project scientist Katie Stack Morton wasn\u2019t sure how well she liked the name.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m a convert now,\u201d she said in a NASA video about the pandemic\u2019s effect on the mission. \u201cPerseverance is the right name for the rover. It\u2019s amazing serendipity that we get to persevere through working on Perseverance. I think now it\u2019s a really important symbol of humanity, hopefully persevering through this great challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"NASA\u2019s Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover \u2013 Countdown to Mars\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/yIWyFX0uxoc?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\" data-ratio=\"0.5625\" data-width=\"800\" data-height=\"450\" style=\"display: block; margin: 0px; width: 800px; height: 450px;\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Opportunities to launch a spacecraft to Mars efficiently come around only every 26 months, and because getting Perseverance ready in time was judged to be an essential activity, NASA went to extraordinary lengths to keep the project going while ensuring the mission team\u2019s safety.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf we have to take Perseverance and put it back into storage for a period of two years, it could cost half a billion dollars,\u201d NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said.<\/p>\n<p>Team members worked from home as much as they could, but JPL also instituted \u201cSafe at Work\u201d rules for mission-essential workers, complete with mandatory masks, social distancing and deep cleaning.<\/p>\n<p>Workers at NASA\u2019s Kennedy Space Center, where the rover is being assembled, had to be extra-careful about clean-room conditions.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe objective was to keep the team as safe or safer than they would be if they were not working,\u201d Wallace said. \u201cPutting a spacecraft together that\u2019s going to Mars, and not making a mistake \u2014 it\u2019s hard, no matter what. Trying to do it during the middle of a pandemic, it\u2019s a lot harder.\u201d<\/p>\n<h4>Detectors, cameras \u2026 and a helicopter<\/h4>\n<p>As if the coronavirus pandemic weren\u2019t enough to deal with, the Perseverance team also had to cope with technical challenges \u2014 for example, redesigning the parachute system so that it\u2019ll stand up to the aerodynamic forces encountered during the spacecraft\u2019s descent through the Martian atmosphere.<\/p>\n<p>That part of the mission, known as \u201cthe seven minutes of terror,\u201d will parallel what Perseverance\u2019s fraternal twin, the Curiosity rover, felt during its successful entry, descent and landing in 2012.<\/p>\n<p>Although the 1-ton, six-wheeled, SUV-sized Perseverance rover is built on the same structural foundation that NASA used for Curiosity, and although both rovers are designed to run on plutonium-powered generators, the instrumentation is dramatically different.<\/p>\n<p>Perseverance is equipped with spectrometers that will inspect Martian rocks in different wavelengths to detect traces of minerals and organic molecules that could have been left behind by ancient life forms.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s also an array of cameras that will capture high-resolution still images and video, even while the rover is being dropped off by its \u201cSky Crane\u201d descent stage.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"NASA\u2019s Mars Helicopter, Ingenuity (UHD Trailer)\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/0RQWv1ybsjM?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\" data-ratio=\"0.5625\" data-width=\"800\" data-height=\"450\" style=\"display: block; margin: 0px; width: 800px; height: 450px;\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The first-ever Mars helicopter, dubbed Ingenuity, is tucked beneath the rover\u2019s belly and is expected to take up to three flights over the Red Planet\u2019s terrain once Perseverance gets itself settled. Bridenstine said that\u2019s the part of the mission he\u2019s most excited about.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am very excited about launching a helicopter to fly on another world for the first time in human history,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>In addition to the COVID-19 plaque, Perseverance is carrying a laser-etched plate that bears nearly 11 million names submitted by the general public during NASA\u2019s \u201cSend Your Name to Mars\u201d campaign. The names were stenciled in 75-nanometer-high letters onto three silicon chips with an electron beam.<\/p>\n<h4>Life on Mars?<\/h4>\n<p>One of Perseverance\u2019s most important tasks is to collect and set aside samples of rock and soil that future missions will bring back to Earth for analysis. Morton said those samples just might hold the definitive evidence relating to the biggest question about Mars: Did life exist on that planet, and could it exist today?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur bar is high for the identification of a sign of life on another planet \u2014 as it should be, because we don\u2019t want to make that discovery lightly,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s important to realize that very likely we\u2019ll have to return those samples to Earth to make that definitive conclusion.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Bridenstine said bringing samples back from Mars \u2014 a process that begins with Perseverance\u2019s perambulations \u2014 will be a key step in NASA\u2019s decade-long plan to send astronauts to the moon and then onward to the Red Planet\u2019s surface.<\/p>\n<p>He saw an auspicious sign in the date for the rover\u2019s launch on a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s not lost on me that 51 years ago, on July 20 \u2026 Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were walking on the moon for the first time in history,\u201d Bridenstine said. \u201cAnd during that time, they did the first-ever lunar return mission. Here we are, with Mars Perseverance, 51 years later, getting ready to do the first-ever Mars return mission.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>So will COVID-19 put a damper on next month\u2019s big day? Bridenstine said access to NASA facilities will be restricted to ensure that the launch team stays healthy, but the surrounding areas are likely to be open to spectators.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor this particular mission, we\u2019re asking people to follow the guidelines of the governor of Florida,\u201d he said. \u201cWe want everybody to practice social distancing, and if you\u2019re within 6 feet, make sure you\u2019re wearing a mask, those kinds of things. But we\u2019re not telling people not to visit for the launch. \u2026 We\u2019re asking people to follow all of the necessary guidelines to keep themselves safe, and we\u2019re trusting them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An engineer attaches a plaque paying tribute to medical workers on the chassis of NASA\u2019s Perseverance rover, which is due for launch to Mars as early as next month. (NASA via YouTube) When NASA\u2019s Perseverance rover lands in Mars\u2019 Jezero Crater next February, it\u2019ll be carrying a tribute to the medical community and their work [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4704,2010,367,190,4706],"class_list":["post-17680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-2020-mars-rover","tag-coronavirus","tag-mars","tag-nasa","tag-perseverance-rover"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17680"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17680"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17680\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}