Since January, NASA’s Perseverance rover has been tracking the south side of Neretva Vallis, which is possibly the fossil of a river that once fed the rover’s landing site in Jezero Crater.
In the distance, Perseverance operators could see the glow of their next destination: Bright Angel, so named for light-hued outcrops that may be ancient rocks uncovered by the river it once ran through.
But what had been a relatively smooth trip turned into hard work as Perseverance rolled into a field of unexpected rocks. After days of hard work, the decision was made to redirect Perseverance through a dune field and across the river channel. It proved to be the right decision: Now, Perseverance has finally reached the Bright Angel landing.
“We were keeping an eye on the river channel to the north as we went, hoping to find a section where the dunes were small and far enough apart for a rover to pass between them,” said Evan Graser, an engineer helping to plan the Perseverance route. in an affirmation. “Perseverance also needed an entrance ramp that we could safely descend. When the images showed both, we went straight there.”
Related: Mars rock sample from Perseverance rover may contain best evidence of possible ancient life
Perseverance depends Automatic navigation, a system that allows the rover to navigate alone. Where before Mars rovers required full control of Earth, Perseverance guides can give you a general route and AutoNav will take care of the minute-by-minute driving. In principle, AutoNav could circumnavigate the rocks in Perseverance’s path. But soon, the stones became too large for the system to handle.
“What were trips averaging more than a hundred meters per Martian day dropped to just tens of meters. It was frustrating,” Graser said in the statement.
Just north of Perseverance’s course, a field of Martian dunes separated it from the bottom of the river channel. If Perseverance managed to cross the dunes, it could leave the rocks behind. However, navigating these dunes is risky, as the Martian sands have a way of trapping rovers – just ask Spirit, who I got stuck in 2009. Fortunately, these dunes were small and spread out enough for Perseverance to plot a course through them.
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Now in the river channel, Perseverance could cover about 200 meters (650 feet) per Martian day. The new course was also lucky for scientific reasons. In the middle of the channel, Perseverance encountered the so-called Mount Washburn, a rocky hill that presented scientists with exciting geological opportunities. One of them was a curious rock that scientists speculate may be the product of an underground pool of magma.
Then, after reaching a cliff near the northern edge of the canal, Perseverance turned west.
Four Martian days later, the rover arrived at Bright Angel and began analyzing its rocks. This raises a question: should Perseverance collect a rock sample here?
