- 3054 - PERSEVERANCE - Mars mission with math. The most advanced rover NASA has sent to another world touched down on Mars Thursday, February 18, 2021, after a 203-day journey of 293 million miles.
--------------- 3054 - PERSEVERANCE - Mars mission with math
- Perseverance is packed with new technology, the Mars 2020 mission launched July 30, 2020, from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The Perseverance rover mission marks an ambitious first step in the effort to collect Mars samples and return them to Earth.
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- About the size of a car, the 2,263-pound (1,026-kilogram) robotic spacecraft will undergo several weeks of testing before it begins its two-year science investigation of Mars' Jezero Crater.
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- While the rover will investigate the rock and sediment of Jezero's ancient lakebed and river delta to characterize the region's geology and past climate, a fundamental part of its mission is astrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life.
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- The Mars Sample Return will allow scientists on Earth to study samples collected by Perseverance to search for definitive signs of past life using instruments too large and complex to send to the Red Planet.
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- Perseverance is the first step in bringing back rock and regolith from Mars. They could tell us if life might have once existed beyond Earth.
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- Some 28 miles wide, Jezero Crater sits on the western edge of Isidis Planitia, a giant impact basin just north of the Martian equator. Scientists have determined that 3.5 billion years ago the crater had its own river delta and was filled with water.
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- Equipped with seven primary science instruments, the most cameras ever sent to Mars, and its exquisitely complex sample caching system Perseverance will scour the Jezero region for fossilized remains of ancient microscopic Martian life, taking samples along the way.
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- Perseverance is the most sophisticated robotic geologist ever made, but verifying that microscopic life once existed carries an enormous burden of proof. While we'll learn a lot with the great instruments we have aboard the rover, it may very well require the far more capable laboratories and instruments back here on Earth to tell us whether our samples carry evidence that Mars once harbored life.
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- The rover not just to land but to find and collect the best scientific samples for return to Earth, and its incredibly complex sampling system and autonomy not only enable that mission, they set the stage for future robotic and crewed missions.
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- The “Mars Entry, Descent, and Landing Instrumentation” 2 (MEDLI2) sensors collected data about Mars' atmosphere during entry, and the Terrain-Relative Navigation system autonomously guided the spacecraft during final descent. The data from both are expected to help future human missions land on other worlds more safely and with larger payloads.
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- On the surface of Mars, Perseverance's science instruments, “Mastcam-Z” a pair of zoomable science cameras on Perseverance's remote sensing mast, or head, will create high-resolution, color 3D panoramas of the Martian landscape.
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- The SuperCam on the mast uses a pulsed laser to study the chemistry of rocks and sediment and has its own microphone to help scientists better understand the property of the rocks, including their hardness.
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- Located on a turret at the end of the rover's robotic arm, the “Planetary Instrument for X-ray Lithochemistry” (PIXL) and the “Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence for Organics & Chemicals” (SHERLOC) instruments will work together to collect data on Mars' geology close-up.
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- PIXL will use an X-ray beam and suite of sensors to delve into a rock's elemental chemistry. SHERLOC's ultraviolet laser and spectrometer, along with its “Wide Angle Topographic Sensor for Operations and eNgineering’ (WATSON) imager, will study rock surfaces, mapping out the presence of certain minerals and organic molecules, which are the carbon-based building blocks of life on Earth.
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- The rover chassis has three science instruments. The “Radar Imager for Mars' Subsurface Experiment” (RIMFAX) is the first ground-penetrating radar on the surface of Mars and will be used to determine how different layers of the Martian surface formed over time. The data could help pave the way for future sensors that hunt for subsurface water ice deposits.
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- The “Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment” (MOXIE) technology demonstration will attempt to manufacture oxygen out of thin air, the Red Planet's tenuous and mostly carbon dioxide atmosphere.
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- The rover's “Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer” (MEDA) instrument, which has sensors on the mast and chassis, will provide key information about present-day Mars weather, climate, and dust.
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- Currently attached to the belly of Perseverance, “Ingenuity Mars Helicopter” is a technology demonstration that will attempt the first powered, controlled flight on another planet.
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- Project engineers and scientists will now put Perseverance through its paces, testing every instrument, subsystem, and subroutine over the next month or two. Only then will they deploy the helicopter to the surface for the flight test phase. If successful, Ingenuity could add an aerial dimension to exploration of the Red Planet in which such helicopters serve as a scouts or make deliveries for future astronauts away from their base.
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- Once Ingenuity's test flights are complete, the rover's search for evidence of ancient microbial life will begin in earnest.
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- A primary objective for Perseverance's mission on Mars is astrobiology research, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will characterize the planet's geology and past climate and be the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith, paving the way for human exploration of the Red Planet.
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- Subsequent NASA missions, in cooperation with ESA, will send spacecraft to Mars to collect these cached samples from the surface and return them to Earth for in-depth analysis.
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- The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission is part of NASA's Moon to Mars exploration approach, which includes Artemis missions to the Moon that will help prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet. Kepler started this exploration over a century ago.
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- The mass of the Mars by using Kepler’s Third Law:
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------------------------------ p^2 = constant * a^3
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---------------------------- period^2 = (constant) * radius^3
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----------------------------- p^2 = (4 pi^2 / G*M) * a^3
------------------------------- M = (4 * pi^2 / G) * ( a3 / p^2)
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- where G is Newton’s constant of gravity equal to 6.67*10^-11 m^3 / kg sec^2
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--------------------- M is the mass of the planet in kilograms,
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--------------------- a is the average orbit radius in meters
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--------------------- T is the orbit period in seconds.
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- The martian moon Phobos was observed from Earth through telescopes to have an orbit radius of 9,380 km and a period of 0.32 days,
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------------------------- What is the mass of Mars?
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------------------------- M = (4*pi^2 / G ) ( (a3 / p2).
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------------------------- a = 9380 km * 1000m / km = 9.38*10^6 m
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------------------------- p = 0.32 days * 24h / d * 3600 s / hr = 27,648 seconds,
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-------- M = [4 * (3.141)^2 / 6.67x10^-11] (9.38*10^6)^3 / (27,648)^2 = 6.39x10^23 kg.
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------------------- The mass of Mars = 6.39x10^23 kg.
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------------------ The mass of Earth = 59.7x10^23 kg. (Over 9 times more massive.)
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- The martian moon Diemos has an orbit period of 1.26 days. What is its orbit radius from the center of Mars in kilometers ?
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- We know M and p and need to solve for a:
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------------------------------ a^3 = GM p^2 / 4pi^2
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------------------------------ p = 1.26d *24h / d * 3600 s / h = 108,864 seconds,
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-------------- a^3 = (6.67*10^-11)(6.39*10^23)(108,864)^2/(4 * 3.141^2) = 1.27x10^22
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----------------------------- a = 23,352 kilometers
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-------------------------- Diemos orbital radius is 23,400 kilometers
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--------------------------- Diemos orbital radius is 14,500 miles
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--------------------------- Earth orbital radius is 93,000,000 miles
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- On March 10, 2006, the “Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter” (MRO) was originally placed into a very elliptical orbit with a period of 35.5 hours and an average radius of 25,889 km. What is the mass of Mars based on this orbit?
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- Its final orbit was achieved in September 2006 with a “circular radius” of 3,700 km.
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- What is the final orbit period in minutes of MRO in the new circular orbit?
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------------------- p2= (4pi^2 / GM) a^3
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------------------- a = 3,700,000 meters
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------------------- M = 6.39*10^23 kg
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------------------- p2 = 4.69*10^7
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------------------ p = 6,848 seconds
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------------------- orbital period = 114 minutes.
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- It takes a little less than 2 hours to complete one orbit around Mars. Knowing all this math results from previous missions is allowing Perseverance to land safely on the surface today. But, lots more math is involved with the 4 past years of engineering.
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February 19, 2021 PERSEVERANCE - Mars mission 3054
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