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The MARS 2020 Rover

by | Feb 23, 2020

MARS 2020 Rover

The Mars 2020 rover

Credit NASA — The Mars 2020 rover

  • Launch Window July 17 – Aug. 5, 2020
  • Launch Location Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida
  • Launching on a ULA Atlas 541 procured under NASA’s Launch Services Program
  • Landing Feb. 18, 2021 
  • Landing Site Jezero Crater, Mars at the site of an ancient river delta in a lake that once filled Jezero Crater
  • Mission Duration At least one Mars year (about 687 Earth days)

The Mars 2020 rover is designed to better understand the geology of Mars and seek signs of ancient life. The mission will collect and store a set of rock and soil samples that could be returned to Earth in the future.  The rover will carry seven instruments to conduct unprecedented science and test new technology on the Red Planet.

  •  Mastcam-Z, an advanced camera system with panoramic and stereoscopic imaging capability with the ability to zoom. The instrument also will determine mineralogy of the Martian surface and assist with rover operations.
  • SuperCam, an instrument that can provide imaging, chemical composition analysis, and mineralogy at a distance. The principal investigator is Roger Wiens, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico. This instrument also has a significant contribution from the Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales, Institut de Recherche en Astrophysique et Planétologie (CNES/IRAP), France.
  • Planetary Instrument for X-ray Lithochemistry (PIXL), an X-ray fluorescence spectrometer and high-resolution imager to map the fine-scale elemental composition of Martian surface materials. PIXL will provide capabilities that permit more detailed detection and analysis of chemical elements than ever before. The principal investigator is Abigail Allwood, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California. • Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals (SHERLOC), a spectrometer that will provide fine-scale imaging and uses an ultraviolet (UV) laser to map mineralogy and organic compounds. SHERLOC will be the first UV Raman spectrometer to fly to the surface of Mars and will provide complementary measurements with other instruments in the payload. SHERLOC includes a high-resolution color camera for microscopic imaging of Mars’ surface. The principal investigator is Luther Beegle, JPL.
  • The Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (MOXIE), a technology demonstration that will produce oxygen from Martian atmospheric carbon dioxide. If successful, MOXIE’s technology could be used by future astronauts on Mars to burn rocket fuel for returning to Earth. The principal investigator is Michael Hecht, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
  • Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer (MEDA), a set of sensors that will provide measurements of temperature, wind speed and direction, pressure, relative humidity, and dust size and shape. The principal investigator is Jose Rodriguez-Manfredi, Centro de Astrobiología, Instituto Nacional de Tecnica Aeroespacial, Spain.
  • The Radar Imager for Mars’ Subsurface Experiment (RIMFAX), a ground-penetrating radar that will provide centimeter-scale resolution of the geologic structure of the subsurface. The principal investigator is Svein-Erik Hamran, the Norwegian Defense Research Establishment, Norway
CREDIT NASA --Members of the NASA Mars Helicopter team attach a thermal film to the exterior of the flight model of the Mars Helicopter. The image was taken on Feb. 1, 2019 inside the Space Simulator, a 25-foot-wide (7.62-meter-wide) vacuum chamber at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

CREDIT NASA –Members of the NASA Mars Helicopter team attach a thermal film to the exterior of the flight model of the Mars Helicopter. The image was taken on Feb. 1, 2019 inside the Space Simulator, a 25-foot-wide (7.62-meter-wide) vacuum chamber at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Landing on Mars:

Credit NASA — The Mars 2020 spacecraft follows an entry, descent, landing process similar to that used in landing the Mars rover, Curiosity. Mars 2020 lands at a site still to be determined in February 2021. Mars 2020 has major new technologies that improve entry, descent, and landing: Range Trigger, Terrain-Relative Navigation, MEDLI2, and its EDL cameras and microphone