The Perseverance rover's SuperCam fired its first laser beams at Mars, targeting a rock a few meters away. These operations made it possible to analyze its structure. Once again, these new tests have been successfully completed, now paving the way for the rover's next scientific missions.
At FOCSE, the French operations center for the Mars 2020 mission based at CNES in Toulouse, researchers are at the controls of Perseverance's SuperCam laser camera. This is one of the centerpieces of the rover that will allow it to probe for evidence of past life on the red planet.
Fixed to a mast, it offers a laser and three spectrometers allowing remote analysis of the chemical composition of rocks . Concretely, the pulsed laser shoots at its target, vaporizing its superficial layer and generating a plasma. The returned image of this spark is then analyzed by the spectrometers.
On the night of March 1 to 2, researchers programmed the first laser shot from this SuperCam. The target:a pebble called "Máaz", which means "Mars" in Navajo (Native American people). The operation was successful. The SuperCam observations indeed allowed the team to determine that this rock had a basaltic composition.
As a reminder, basalts are igneous or volcanic rocks common on Mars and Earth. On the other hand, it is not known at the moment if Máaz itself is volcanic. It is indeed also possible that it is a sedimentary rock composed of igneous grains carried downstream in the Jezero crater, before being cemented together.
A microphone, also installed on the SuperCam, also allowed the teams to hear the small "pops" generated by the laser hitting its target, as well as the sound of the wind in the thin atmosphere of the planet. “These recordings have demonstrated that our microphone not only works well, but that we also have a very high quality signal for our scientific studies” , said Naomi Murdoch, of the SuperCam team in Toulouse.
Note that Perseverance has not really started its scientific work yet. The rover's first big task will be to find a suitable "aerodrome" for the Ingenuity helicopter, which will have to operate a first demonstration flight.
Meanwhile the rover, which will be at a safe distance, will attempt to document this historic first test in images. It's possible that one of the vehicle's two microphones could pick up the sounds of Ingenuity's rotors whipping through the Martian air, the researchers said. It promises.
