Despite the American space agency going into lockdown mode at several of its facilitie across the U.S. because of the coronavirus pandemic, the missionS planned for the near future have not been impacted. This means the assembly of the Perseverance rover destined for Mars continues.
At the beginning of March, NASA completed the installation of two pretentiously-named pieces of hardware, the Adaptive Caching Assembly and the Bit Carousel. Both are part of the machine's rock sampling system, and are essential to the success of the mission.
The Bit Carousel is in fact a rotating disc containing nine drills that will be used to dig tiny holes into the Martian surface. What is extracted from there is sent to the Adaptive Caching System for assessment and processing.
"With the addition of the Adaptive Caching Assembly and Bit Carousel, the heart of our sample collection system is now on board the rover," said in a statement Matt Wallace, deputy project manager of the Mars 2020 mission at JPL.
"Our final but most crucial elements to install will be the sample tubes that will contain the first samples that will be brought from another planet back to Earth for analysis. We will keep these pristine until we integrate them in a couple of months."
The rover is expected to take off for Mars this summer, and will arrive on the Red Planet in early 2021, joining the four other American machines there, of which only one is still active. Aside from sampling rocks and soil, the rover will be the first to attempt a terraforming process, albeit on a tiny scale.
On Thursday, March 19, NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine warned that the coronavirus pandemic that led to the closing of some of the agency's facilities could impact the missions planned for this year, but at least for the moment that is not the case with the rover.
Daniel loves writing (or so he claims), and he uses this skill to offer readers a "behind the scenes" look at the automotive industry. He also enjoys talking about space exploration and robots, because in his view the only way forward for humanity is away from this planet, in metal bodies. Full profile
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