Perseverance recently embarked on its first "real" science campaign, just over 100 days after landing in Jezero Crater on February 18. The rover will focus on two study areas and collect its first Mars samples for the future return mission to Earth.
Since its arrival on February 18, the rover's first months on the red planet have been mainly devoted to checking its instruments and documenting the flights of its companion Ingenuity, which has just completed its seventh flight to Mars. But the time for demonstrations is over. On June 1, Perseverance therefore began its own scientific mission to search for traces of past life on Mars.
“We put the commissioning phase of the rover as well as the landing site in our rearview mirror and hit the road” , said Jennifer Trosper, the new project manager at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). “Over the next few months, Perseverance will explore a four square kilometer patch of crater floor.”
Once this area has been studied, Perseverance will return to its landing site. At this point, he will have already traveled between 2.5 and 5 kilometers. It will then head to the Jezero Crater Delta to the northwest. On Earth, these structures promote the conservation of organic compounds and other signs of life. Also, the mission team is eager to be able to analyze these ancient river deposits.
For this first mission, Perseverance should normally focus on two distinct geological units:the Crater Floor Fractured Rough and "Séítah" ("in the middle of the sand" in the Navajo language), which feature old and exposed bedrock.
“We have planned our route. Optional bifurcations, depending on areas of interest, have also been labelled, as have potential obstacles in our path” , continues Jennifer Trosper. “This is also where the first samples will be collected for a return to Earth" .
If all goes according to plan, Perseverance will collect and store one or two samples from each of the four locations of the two units which, around 3.8 billion years ago, were submerged in at least one hundred meters of water . Researchers are therefore obviously eager to "read" what these stratified rocks and outcrops will have to tell.
