On Perseverance

This is not a post about surviving the ongoing pandemic.

Just about the last thing anyone needs right now, from what I can tell, is another diatribe over how difficult everything continues to be in the wake of COVID-19. Even if I wanted to add my voice to that cacophony, today is not the day to do it. Because today, we get to celebrate Perseverance.

No, I’m not talking about a really important human character trait. I’m talking about a Martian rover about the size of a car. For the past six months it has been hurtling its way through our solar system at 24,600 miles per hour to reach the red planet. For those keeping track at home, that’s nearly 15 times the speed of the fastest bullets you can fire on Earth (eat your heart out Superman). Today, at about 3:55 Eastern Standard Time, our zippy, not so little friend is expected to touch down.

So what’s the big deal?

First, Mars is still really, REALLY hard to reach. Our optimal window for launching vehicles only happens just about every two years. These launch windows are at times when the orbital paths of both Earth and Mars bring them the closest together, dramatically shortening the travel distance and time, and saving precious fuel resources to help missions reach their goal. Oh and by the way, bringing an interplanetary vehicle from 25,000 mph to zero, and nailing a soft landing is exponentially harder on a planet that has very little atmosphere to help with the braking process.

Getting to Mars is so hard that of 12 missions so far, NASA has only successfully landed 8. Each one of those failures represents a huge investment in research, development, production, launch and mission costs. (And NASA has the best record of any space agency in the world!)

Secondly, NASA is trying some incredible new approaches with this mission: including a helicopter and a crane. Now, reading that, you probably thought neither of those was really remarkable, right? But let’s talk about it.

It’s not just any crane. It’s a rocket assisted, descent stage crane that will lower Perseverance softly into rough terrain from about 60 feet above the surface, disconnect itself, and then fly off to a safe distance from the lander before meeting its own demise. I can’t do justice to the INSANE level of innovation this represents for NASA. You should watch this video for a better understanding.

And it’s not just any old helicopter. It’s a 4 pound drone, operating autonomously on a planet with negligible atmosphere, in an area that drops to -130 degrees Fahrenheit at night. Because of communications delays, it could complete successful flights long before NASA/JPL even know it received the complex instructions necessary for it to execute missions. Audacious.

But that’s not all. The final, really big deal I’ll point out here today: Perseverance is going to bring some Mars back to us. If you tune into the NASA coverage of the landing, they’re likely to talk about this in a lot more detail. But one of the mission goals is to collect soil samples that will be returned to Earth on a separate Mars mission. I smiled ear to ear when I got to hold a moon rock. I may just cry if I ever get to touch a Martian pebble.

We are at the doorstep of a golden age for human space flight. Perseverance was named fittingly for 2020 and all the challenges it brought us. But it was also named fittingly for all that our endeavors in deep space represent about the human spirit. I hope you’ll take a moment today, look to the heavens, and celebrate the first milestones of this intrepid, not so little robot.