Since January, NASA’s Perseverance rover has been exploring the southern side of the Neretva Valley, which may be a fossil of a river that once provided water to the rover’s landing site in Jezero Crater.
In the distance, Perseverance’s operators could see the faint lights of their next destination, Bright Angel, named for a light-toned outcrop that may be ancient rock exposed by a once-flowing river.
However, the relatively smooth journey turned into ordeal when Perseverance hit an unexpected rocky area. After days of ordeal, a decision was made to change the course of Perseverance across the sand dune field and through the river channel. This decision proved to be correct. Now, Perseverance has finally reached the landing site of Bright Angel.
“We were watching the river channels to the north, hoping to find a place where the dunes were small and far enough apart for the rover to pass through,” said Evan Glaser, an engineer helping plan Perseverance’s route. statement“Perseverance also needed a safe access point, and the imagery showed both, so we headed straight for it.”
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Patience is Auto NavigationA system that enables a spacecraft to navigate on its own. Mars The rover needed complete control. EarthPerseverance’s Guider gives the general direction, while AutoNavi handles minute-by-minute steering. Initially, AutoNav was able to navigate around rocks in Perseverance’s path, but soon the rocks became too large for the system to handle.
“We went from an average progress of over 100 metres per day on Mars to just a few tens of metres. It’s frustrating,” Glaser said in a statement.
Just north of Perseverance’s path, a Martian sand dune separates the rover from the riverbed. If Perseverance could get over the dune, it could leave the rocks behind. But navigating such a dune would be dangerous, because Martian sand has the potential to trap the rover. Just ask Spirit. I got caught Fortunately, these dunes were small and far enough apart that Perseverance was able to navigate between them.
Entering the river channel, Perseverance could travel about 200 meters (650 feet) per Martian day. This new course was also fortunate for science reasons: in the middle of the channel, Perseverance encountered a rock formation called Mount Washburn, which presented scientists with some exciting geological opportunities, including a strange rock formation that scientists speculate could be the product of an underground magma chamber.
Perseverance then changed course to the west after reaching cliffs near the northern end of the channel.
Four Martian days later, the rover arrived at Bright Angel and began analyzing the rocks, which raises the question: Should Perseverance take rock samples here?