Countdown to Mars

The latest NASA rover Perseverance is scheduled to begin its 300 million mile journey to Mars tomorrow morning and the excitement is contagious. With final preparations underway today, the public was invited to participate in a special Countdown to Mars event. The virtual event was shared over NASA Live in six different sessions and included Q&A’s with key NASA scientists at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, NASA headquarters in Washington, D.C., and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

Thomas Zurbachen, who has a doctorate in physics, participated in the Countdown to Mars event from NASA headquarters. Zurbuchen is NASA’s associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate and currently oversees 105 missions. He considers the Perseverance mission a jewel because it seeks to answer the profound question, “Is there life elsewhere?” He enthusiastically adds, “We are ready, we believe, to start answering that question with missions that are focused on astrobiology.” 

Astrobiology is the theoretical study of what life could be beyond Earth. Speaking from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, astrobiologist Joby Hollis explains, “If life existed on a world like Mars, what did it look like? Was it made from the same molecules of DNA like we are, or was it made from something completely different?” He goes on to say, “We’re still not sure what we are looking for, but we’re pretty certain when we find it we’ll know.”

In 2012, the Curiosity rover landed on Mars with the mission to find out if the planet could have ever supported life. The answer was a resounding yes. The key ingredients for life, at least as we know it on Earth, were present 3.5 billion years ago on Mars: water, warmth, and the elements hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen and carbon.

A satellite image of the river delta where the river poured into the lake.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/JHU-APL

With conditions on Mars potentially supportive of life, the Perseverance mission has been tasked to find evidence of ancient life. Jezero Crater, the site of a former lake and river delta, has been selected as the location for this mission. NASA scientists believe signs of microbial life may be present in the clay deposits in the river delta.

At the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, home of the Perseverance rover, engineer Christiana Diaz Hernandez explains how the instruments on the rover have been designed to support the mission. “We have three spectrometers on the rover — SUPERCAM, SHERLOC, and PIXL — and they’re going to be using chemistry and astrobiology processes to understand what chemicals and organics are present on the samples that we’ll drill up with the rover.” Three other instruments — a ground-penetrating radar, weather station, and camera — provide additional information about the environment of the sample. Hernandez continues, “If you have a piece of data you need the context of where that data came from. . . . All of these instruments are contributing to the context of the sample that we take.” 

The Perseverance rover carries seven instruments to conduct its science and exploration technology investigations.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Perseverance will package the soil and rock samples in tubes and leave them on the surface of Mars for retrieval by a future mission. The samples will be studied back on Earth where laboratory resources far exceed what can be placed on the rover.

The Perseverance rover, with a name that describes the scientists who developed it, is scheduled to launch on July 30, 2020 at 7:50 a.m. EDT on an Atlas V-541 rocket from Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida. Catch the excitement on NASA Live.