Since January, NASA’s Perseverance rover has been exploring the southern part of Neretva Wallis, a fossilized river that once fed the rover’s landing site in Jezero Crater.
In the distance, Perseverance’s operators could see the glimmer of its next target: Bright Angel, named for light-filled outcrops that may be ancient rocks unearthed by a previously flowing river.
But a relatively smooth ride turned into a slog as persistence rolled into a field of unexpected boulders. After several days of indolence, it was decided to shift the effort across a dune field and through a river channel. It proved the right decision: now, perseverance has finally reached Bright Angel’s Landing.
„We were tracking the river channel to the north as we went, hoping to find an area where the dunes were small and far enough apart for a rover to pass through,” said Evan Grazer, an engineer who helped plan Perseverance’s trajectory. Inside A statement. „Perseverance also needed an entryway so we could safely travel down. When the images showed both, we made a beeline for it.”
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Persistence depends Autonav, the system that allows the rover to navigate itself. Where before tuesday Rovers need full control Earth, Persistence’s guides can provide a general route to it, and AutoNav handles the minute-to-minute steering. First, AutoNav can navigate around boulders on a persistence path. But soon, the rocks became too big for the system to handle.
„The average run of more than a hundred meters per day on Mars went only ten meters. This was frustrating,” Grazer said in the report.
North of the course of the Perseverance, a field of Mars Hills separated it from the floor of the river channel. If persistence can overcome hills, it may leave boulders behind. Passing through such dunes is dangerous, however, as Martian sands have a way of trapping rovers – just ask Spirit. I got stuck In 2009. Fortunately, these hills were small and spread out enough to persevere.
Now in the river’s channel, diligence can cross 200 meters (650 feet) per day. The new course was also fortunate for scientific reasons. In the middle of the channel Perseverance encountered a rocky mountain known as Mount Washburn, which offered scientists wonderful geological opportunities. One of them is a curious rock, which scientists speculate may be the result of a surface magma pool.
Then, after reaching a ridge near the northern edge of the canal, the Diligence turned west.
Four days later, the rover reached Bright Angel and began surveying its reefs. This begs the question: Is persistence here to collect a rock sample?