A New Rover for Mars

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As the Curiosity Rover comes to its end, a new rover, Perseverance, will be launched to Mars to replace its predecessor. On Mars, Perseverance will look for life and help scientists with research on the Red Planet. Compared to the Curiosity Rover, the Perseverance Rover has much more added utility. Scientists plan to use the new tools to do more research on Mars in order to plan for a man led mission. 

When Perseverance lands, it will land on a possible habitable site. At the site, Perseverance will use its many tools to take samples of the soil looking for microbial life and water. The Rover will create 42 soil samples and place them in a designated space. Preserve would do this for a future Rover, made by ESL (European Space Agency), to come to Mars and send the samples back to Earth for research. The ESL will use the rover to pick up the samples and shoot them into space. The sample will eventually be taken by a vehicle to NASA.  Researchers at NASA will be able to use the samples to do even more in-depth research with more tools. With the soil samples, researchers will look into the past of Mars. The data will be used for future plans of sending humans to Mars. While scientists wait for the samples to come to Earth, the Rover can use its many tools to look into Mar’s surface. The Rover will look for biosignatures using UV lights. The Rover can send ground-penetrating radars 10 meters down that can possibly locate water. 

When the Curiosity Rover traveled throughout the Red Planet, many problems occurred. As the Curiosity Rover traveled more, its wheels started breaking apart. The Martian surface caused the wheels to break apart. The Rover was losing its mobility and problems started to occur. To solve this issue, Engineers increased the length and decreased the diameter of the wheels. Among other improvements, the Rover will have a better camera. The engineers also included a microphone to hear the sounds of Mars. The Rover will be powered by a nuclear isotope called Plutonium-238. Perseverance will turn Plutonium-238 into thermal energy. 

Along with the Rover, NASA is also sending a robotic helicopter, name Ingenuity, to do research about the Mar’s Atmosphere. Ingenuity is the first man-powered flight taking place on another planet. Ingenuity creates problems for engineers as the Density of Mars is different from Earth. Ingenuity spins much faster compared to a helicopter on Earth. Ingenuity will be equipped with solar panels to produce power. NASA will use Ingenuity as a guide for future robotic helicopters to scour the Red Planet. 

On Mars, Perseverance will use its many tools to discover Mars’ past. The new tools will allow Perseverance to do more experiments and send important information for a future human mission to the Red planet. Perseverance and Ingenuity will create formats for possible human colonization of Mars.