“The ability to help answer questions that are deep-rooted, questions that people have been asking since ancient times: ‘What’s out there? Are we alone?’ These are the types of questions that everyone can relate to no matter what your background or culture…” said Dr. Philip Twu, Robotics Systems Engineer at the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab, as he described the purpose of the Mars 2020 mission.
Through an Ismaili Jamatkhana and Center Program that was moderated by Ali Talaksi, a Masters student in Aerospace Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology, two key engineers from the Mars 2020 mission answered questions about the mission and provided an inside view into the Perseverance Rover that is scheduled to launch on July 30, 2020.
A number of factors make Mars the ideal planet to consider for life beyond Earth, including relative proximity to earth, past abundance of water, and solid (versus gaseous) composition. Thus, a number of countries are investing resources to study this planet, and the Mars 2020 mission is one of three expeditions scheduled for a short launch window this summer, when Mars and Earth align favorably.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) launched the Amal probe, which will orbit around Mars and continue to answer questions about how Mars might have transformed from an environment that could sustain life, to its current frigid and sterile state. China launched Tianwen-1, which will orbit Mars and also land a rover on the planet. This mission hopes to answer questions about past life on the planet, and how to make Mars an inhabitable environment for humans in the future.
Perseverance is the fifth rover to be sent to Mars by the United States over the last twenty plus years. Through previous missions, NASA scientists have found clues suggesting a past abundance of water and conditions that might have sustained microbial life at some point during the history of this planet.
Dr. Mohamed Abid is a Deputy Chief Mechanical Engineer at the Jet Propulsion Lab. He explained that the Perseverance Rover’s primary mission is to collect and prepare samples from rocks and soil on Mars. This will be accomplished through the Rover’s Sample Caching System, which he described as “the most complex robotic system that has ever been built.” The collected samples will be brought back to earth for testing by a future mission, to determine if there is any evidence of past or present life on the Red Planet.
Dr. Abid explained that another major objective of the mission is to generate oxygen on Mars using the Moxie instrument that is aboard the Perseverance Rover. Moxie is designed to use the carbon dioxide-rich atmosphere on Mars and electrochemically produce oxygen. If successful, this can be scaled up to provide oxygen for breathing and for fueling rockets, thereby helping support future Mars explorers.
Dr. Twu talked about the navigation system on Perseverance and compared it to a self-driving car. The Perseverance will get destination coordinates from Mission Control through satellite signals. Unlike a car on earth, which must navigate through traffic and street signs, the Rover must avoid cliffs and large rocks. It is equipped to survey the terrain, analyze hazards, create various route options, and determine the best route.
Perseverance is equipped with special computers that can withstand the high radiation levels on Mars. However, this makes the computers about 10 times slower than a typical smartphone. For this reason, Perseverance is equipped with two computers to drive and analyze data at the same time.
Another first for this mission is that Perseverance will carry with it a helicopter. This will be the first time that a rotorcraft is taken to another planet. This helicopter is named Ingenuity, and Vaneeza Rupani, an Ismaili student from Alabama, had the honor of selecting this name. Vaneeza briefly joined the moderated session. She talked about why she chose the name “Ingenuity” and asked Drs. Abid and Twu what they like most about their jobs.
Dr. Abid encouraged students to work hard and “do projects and tinker with things. It will help you understand what you like to do. Use this time as a student to position yourself and find out what you like to do.” As a student from Tunisia, Dr. Abid was focused on working in space exploration. He said, “It really does not matter where you are from, what your color is, or what your gender is, especially in this industry.” He continued, “really what matters is what you’ve got in your brains, your willingness, how well can you work with the team, and what can you bring to the table.”
Remarked Dr. Twu, “When we go to Mars, we are carrying the hopes of everyone along with us, and when we make a discovery, we are doing it on behalf of everyone.” As a child, he was fascinated by space, adventure, and exploration. However, he had late exposure to STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) and he had no role models in STEM fields. He took physics in his second semester of college and “realized how science and math come together, and how engineering uses these fields to make things happen.” His advice to students is to “find your passion and pursue it. Also, be true to yourself in what is your personal definition of success, and work towards it.”
Both engineers are excited and a bit anxious about the upcoming Mars 2020 launch. For Dr. Abid, this project is the “culmination of many years of hard work, design, testing, and re-testing, training, and preparing.” Even after eight years on the Mars 2020 project, he says, “This is just the beginning. Once we launch, we will have totally different things happening. There will be the six-month cruise phase, the landing, and then the team can start doing the science…we can hardly wait to push the launch button.”
NOTE: The spacecraft carrying the rover and helicopter successfully launched to Mars Thursday morning aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V 541 rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida at 7:50 a.m. ET.
