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By NASA
6 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
This enhanced-color mosaic was taken on Sept. 27 by the Perseverance rover while climbing the western wall of Jezero Crater. Many of the landmarks visited by the rover during its 3½-year exploration of Mars can be seen.NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS On its way up the side of Jezero Crater, the agency’s latest Red Planet off-roader peers all the way back to its landing site and scopes the path ahead.
NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover is negotiating a steeply sloping route up Jezero Crater’s western wall with the aim of cresting the rim in early December. During the climb, the rover snapped not only a sweeping view of Jezero Crater’s interior, but also imagery of the tracks it left after some wheel slippage along the way.
An annotated version of the mosaic captured by Perseverance highlights nearly 50 labeled points of interest across Jezero Crater, including the rover’s landing site. The 44 images that make up the mosaic were taken Sept. 27.NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS Stitched together from 44 frames acquired on Sept. 27, the 1,282nd Martian day of Perseverance’s mission, the image mosaic features many landmarks and Martian firsts that have made the rover’s 3½-year exploration of Jezero so memorable, including the rover’s landing site, the spot where it first found sedimentary rocks, the location of the first sample depot on another planet, and the final airfield for NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter. The rover captured the view near a location the team calls “Faraway Rock,” at about the halfway point in its climb up the crater wall.
“The image not only shows our past and present, but also shows the biggest challenge to getting where we want to be in the future,” said Perseverance’s deputy project manager, Rick Welch of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “If you look at the right side of the mosaic, you begin to get an idea what we’re dealing with. Mars didn’t want to make it easy for anyone to get to the top of this ridge.”
Visible on the right side of the mosaic is a slope of about 20 degrees. While Perseverance has climbed 20-degree inclines before (both NASA’s Curiosity and Opportunity rovers had crested hills at least 10 degrees steeper), this is the first time it’s traveled that steep a grade on such a slippery surface.
This animated orbital-map view shows the route NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover has taken since its February 2021 landing at Jezero Crater to July 2024, when it took its “Cheyava Falls” sample. As of October 2024, the rover has driven over 30 kilometers (18.65 miles), and has collected 24 samples of rock and regolith as well as one air sample. NASA/JPL-Caltech Soft, Fluffy
During much of the climb, the rover has been driving over loosely packed dust and sand with a thin, brittle crust. On several days, Perseverance covered only about 50% of the distance it would have on a less slippery surface, and on one occasion, it covered just 20% of the planned route.
“Mars rovers have driven over steeper terrain, and they’ve driven over more slippery terrain, but this is the first time one had to handle both — and on this scale,” said JPL’s Camden Miller, who was a rover planner, or “driver,” for Curiosity and now serves the same role on the Perseverance mission. “For every two steps forward Perseverance takes, we were taking at least one step back. The rover planners saw this was trending toward a long, hard slog, so we got together to think up some options.”
On Oct. 3, they sent commands for Perseverance to test strategies to reduce slippage. First, they had it drive backward up the slope (testing on Earth has shown that under certain conditions the rover’s “rocker-bogie” suspension system maintains better traction during backward driving). Then they tried cross-slope driving (switchbacking) and driving closer to the northern edge of “Summerland Trail,” the name the mission has given to the rover’s route up the crater rim.
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NASA’s Perseverance drives first backward then forward as it negotiates some slippery terrain found along a route up to the rim of Jezero Crater on Oct. 15. The Mars rover used one of its navigation cameras to capture the 31 images that make up this short video.NASA/JPL-Caltech Data from those efforts showed that while all three approaches enhanced traction, sticking close to the slope’s northern edge proved the most beneficial. The rover planners believe the presence of larger rocks closer to the surface made the difference.
“That’s the plan right now, but we may have to change things up the road,” said Miller. “No Mars rover mission has tried to climb up a mountain this big this fast. The science team wants to get to the top of the crater rim as soon as possible because of the scientific opportunities up there. It’s up to us rover planners to figure out a way to get them there.”
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In a few weeks, Perseverance is expected to crest the crater rim at a location the science team calls “Lookout Hill.” From there, it will drive about another quarter-mile (450 meters) to “Witch Hazel Hill.” Orbital data shows that Witch Hazel Hill contains light-toned, layered bedrock. The team is looking forward to comparing this new site to “Bright Angel,” the area where Perseverance recently discovered and sampled the “Cheyava Falls” rock.
Tracks shown in this image indicate the slipperiness of the terrain Perseverance has encountered during its climb up the rim of Jezero Crater. The image was taken by one of rover’s navigation cameras on Oct. 11. NASA/JPL-Caltech The rover landed on Mars carrying 43 tubes for collecting samples from the Martian surface. So far, Perseverance has sealed and cached 24 samples of rock and regolith (broken rock and dust), plus one atmospheric sample and three witness tubes. Early in the mission’s development, NASA set the requirement for the rover to be capable of caching at least 31 samples of rock, regolith, and witness tubes over the course of Perseverance’s mission at Jezero. The project added 12 tubes, bringing the total to 43. The extras were included in anticipation of the challenging conditions found at Mars that could result in some tubes not functioning as designed.
NASA decidedto retire two of the spare empty tubes because accessing them would pose a risk to the rover’s small internal robotic sample-handling arm needed for the task: A wire harness connected to the arm could catch on a fastener on the rover’s frame when reaching for the two empty sample tubes.
With those spares now retired, Perseverance currently has 11 empty tubes for sampling rock and two empty witness tubes.
More About Perseverance
A key objective of Perseverance’s mission on Mars is astrobiology, including caching samples that may contain signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will characterize the planet’s geology and past climate, to help pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet and as the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith.
NASA’s Mars Sample Return Program, in cooperation with ESA (European Space Agency), is designed to send spacecraft to Mars to collect these sealed samples from the surface and return them to Earth for in-depth analysis.
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.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is managed for the agency by Caltech, built and manages operations of the Perseverance rover.
For more about Perseverance:
https://science.nasa.gov/mission/mars-2020-perseverance
News Media Contacts
Karen Fox / Molly Wasser
NASA Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / molly.l.wasser@nasa.gov
DC Agle
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-393-9011
agle@jpl.nasa.gov
2024-144
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Last Updated Oct 28, 2024 Related Terms
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By NASA
Mars: Perseverance (Mars 2020) Perseverance Home Mission Overview Rover Components Mars Rock Samples Where is Perseverance? Ingenuity Mars Helicopter Mission Updates Science Overview Objectives Instruments Highlights Exploration Goals News and Features Multimedia Perseverance Raw Images Images Videos Audio More Resources Mars Missions Mars Sample Return Mars Perseverance Rover Mars Curiosity Rover MAVEN Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Mars Odyssey More Mars Missions The Solar System The Sun Mercury Venus Earth The Moon Mars Jupiter Saturn Uranus Neptune Pluto & Dwarf Planets Asteroids, Comets & Meteors The Kuiper Belt The Oort Cloud 3 min read
Perseverance Kicks off the Crater Rim Campaign!
Mastcam-Z mosaic made of 59 individual Mastcam-Z images showing the area Perseverance will climb in the coming weeks on its way to Dox Castle, the rover’s first stop on the crater rim. NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS Perseverance is officially headed into a new phase of scientific investigation on the Jezero Crater rim!
For the last 2 months, the Perseverance rover has been exploring the Neretva Vallis region of Jezero Crater, where rocks with interesting popcorn-like textures and “leopard spot” patterns have fascinated us all. Now, the rover has begun its long ascent up the crater rim, and is officially kicking off a new phase of exploration for the mission.
Strategic (longer-term) planning is particularly important for the Mars 2020 mission given the crucial role Perseverance plays in collecting samples for Mars Sample Return, and the Mars 2020 team undertakes this planning in the form of campaigns. Perseverance has now completed four such campaigns— the Crater Floor, Delta Front, Upper Fan and Margin Unit campaigns respectively— making the Crater Rim Campaign next in line. Given its broad scope and the wide diversity of rocks we expect to encounter and sample along the way, it may be the most ambitious campaign the team has attempted so far.
The team also has less information from orbiter data to go on compared to previous campaigns, because this area of the crater rim does not have the high-resolution, hyperspectral imaging of CRISM that helped inform much of our geological unit distinctions inside the crater. This means that Mastcam-Z multispectral and SuperCam long-distance imaging will be particularly useful for understanding broadscale mineralogical distinctions between rocks as we traverse the crater rim. Such imaging has already proved extremely useful in the Neretva Vallis area, where at Alsap Butte we observed rocks that appeared similar to each other in initial imaging, but actually display an Andy-Warhol-esque array of color in multispectral products, indicative of varied mineral signatures.
Our next stop is Dox Castle where Perseverance will investigate the contact between the Margin Unit and the Crater rim, as well as rubbly material that may be our first encounter with deposits generated during the impact that created Jezero crater itself. Later in the campaign, we will investigate other light-toned outcrops that may or may not be similar to those encountered at Bright Angel, as well as rocks thought to be part of the regionally extensive olivine-carbonate-bearing unit, and whose relationship to both Séítah and the Margin Unit remains an interesting story to unravel. Throughout this next phase of exploration, comparing and contrasting the rocks we see on the rim to both each other and those previously explored in the mission will be an important part of our scientific investigations.
The whole Mars 2020 science team is incredibly excited to be embarking on the next phase of Perseverance’s adventure, and we expect these results, and the samples we collect along the way, to inform our understanding of not just Jezero itself, but the planet Mars as a whole. We can’t wait to share what we find!
Written by Eleni Ravanis, PhD Candidate and Graduate Research Assistant at University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
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Last Updated Aug 27, 2024 Related Terms
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Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
This panorama shows the area NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover will climb in coming months to crest Jezero Crater’s rim. It is made up of 59 images taken by the rover’s Mastcam-Z on Aug. 4.NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS After 2½ years exploring Jezero Crater’s floor and river delta, the rover will ascend to an area where it will search for more discoveries that could rewrite Mars’ history.
NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover will soon begin a monthslong ascent up the western rim of Jezero Crater that is likely to include some of the steepest and most challenging terrain the rover has encountered to date. Scheduled to start the week of Aug. 19, the climb will mark the kickoff of the mission’s new science campaign — its fifth since the rover landed in the crater on Feb. 18, 2021.
“Perseverance has completed four science campaigns, collected 22 rock cores, and traveled over 18 unpaved miles,” said Perseverance project manager Art Thompson of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “As we start the Crater Rim Campaign, our rover is in excellent condition, and the team is raring to see what’s on the roof of this place.”
Two of the priority regions the science team wants to study at the top of the crater are nicknamed “Pico Turquino” and “Witch Hazel Hill.” Imagery from NASA’s Mars orbiters indicates that Pico Turquino contains ancient fractures that may have been caused by hydrothermal activity in the distant past.
One of the navigation cameras aboard NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover captured this view looking back at the “Bright Angel” area on July 30, the 1,224th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. NASA/JPL-Caltech Orbital views of Witch Hazel show layered materials that likely date from a time when Mars had a very different climate than today. Those views have revealed light-toned bedrock similar to what was found at “Bright Angel,” the area where Perseverance recently discovered and sampled the “Cheyava Falls” rock, which exhibits chemical signatures and structures that could possibly have been formed by life billions of years ago when the area contained running water.
It’s Sedimentary
During the river delta exploration phase of the mission, the rover collected the only sedimentary rock ever sampled from a planet other than Earth. Sedimentary rocks are important because they form when particles of various sizes are transported by water and deposited into a standing body of water; on Earth, liquid water is one of the most important requirements for life as we know it.
A study published Wednesday, Aug. 14, in AGU Advances chronicles the 10 rock cores gathered from sedimentary rocks in an ancient Martian delta, a fan-shaped collection of rocks and sediment that formed billions of years ago at the convergence of a river and a crater lake.
The core samples collected at the fan front are the oldest, whereas the rocks cored at the fan top are likely the youngest, produced when flowing water deposited sediment in the western fan.
“Among these rock cores are likely the oldest materials sampled from any known environment that was potentially habitable,” said Tanja Bosak, a geobiologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge and member of Perseverance’s science team. “When we bring them back to Earth, they can tell us so much about when, why, and for how long Mars contained liquid water and whether some organic, prebiotic, and potentially even biological evolution may have taken place on that planet.”
This map shows the route NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover will take (in blue) as it climbs the western rim of Jezero Crater, first reaching “Dox Castle,” then investigating the “Pico Turquino” area before approaching “Witch Hazel Hill.” NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona Onward to the Crater Rim
As scientifically intriguing as the samples have been so far, the mission expects many more discoveries to come.
“Our samples are already an incredibly scientifically compelling collection, but the crater rim promises to provide even more samples that will have significant implications for our understanding of Martian geologic history,” said Eleni Ravanis, a University of Hawaiì at Mānoa scientist on Perseverance’s Mastcam-Z instrument team and one of the Crater Rim Campaign science leads. “This is because we expect to investigate rocks from the most ancient crust of Mars. These rocks formed from a wealth of different processes, and some represent potentially habitable ancient environments that have never been examined up close before.”
Reaching the top of the crater won’t be easy. To get there, Perseverance will rely on its auto-navigation capabilities as it follows a route that rover planners designed to minimize hazards while still giving the science team plenty to investigate. Encountering slopes of up to 23 degrees on the journey (rover drivers avoid terrain that would tilt Perseverance more than 30 degrees), the rover will have gained about 1,000 feet (300 meters) in elevation by the time it summits the crater’s rim at a location the science team has dubbed “Aurora Park.”
Then, perched hundreds of meters above a crater floor stretching 28 miles (45 kilometers) across, Perseverance can begin the next leg of its adventure.
More Mission Information
A key objective of Perseverance’s mission on Mars is astrobiology, including caching samples that may contain signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will characterize the planet’s geology and past climate, to help pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet and as the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith.
NASA’s Mars Sample Return Program, in cooperation with ESA (European Space Agency), is designed to send spacecraft to Mars to collect these sealed samples from the surface and return them to Earth for in-depth analysis.
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.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is managed for the agency by Caltech, built and manages operations of the Perseverance rover.
For more about Perseverance:
science.nasa.gov/mission/mars-2020-perseverance
News Media Contacts
DC Agle
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-393-9011
agle@jpl.nasa.gov
Alise Fisher / Erin Morton
NASA Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
alise.m.fisher@nasa.gov / erin.morton@nasa.gov
2024-107
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Last Updated Aug 14, 2024 Related Terms
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By NASA
6 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
NASA’s Perseverance rover discovered “leopard spots” on a reddish rock nicknamed “Cheyava Falls” in Mars’ Jezero Crater in July 2024. Scientists think the spots may indicate that, billions of years ago, the chemical reactions in this rock could have supported microbial life; other explanations are being considered.NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS An annotated version of the image of “Cheyava Falls” indicates the markings akin to leopard spots, which have particularly captivated scientists, and the olivine in the rock. The image was captured by the WATSON instrument on NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover on July 18.NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS The six-wheeled geologist found a fascinating rock that has some indications it may have hosted microbial life billions of years ago, but further research is needed.
A vein-filled rock is catching the eye of the science team of NASA’s Perseverance rover. Nicknamed “Cheyava Falls” by the team, the arrowhead-shaped rock contains fascinating traits that may bear on the question of whether Mars was home to microscopic life in the distant past.
Analysis by instruments aboard the rover indicates the rock possesses qualities that fit the definition of a possible indicator of ancient life. The rock exhibits chemical signatures and structures that could possibly have been formed by life billions of years ago when the area being explored by the rover contained running water. Other explanations for the observed features are being considered by the science team, and future research steps will be required to determine whether ancient life is a valid explanation.
The rock — the rover’s 22nd rock core sample — was collected on July 21, as the rover explored the northern edge of Neretva Vallis, an ancient river valley measuring a quarter-mile (400 meters) wide that was carved by water rushing into Jezero Crater long ago.
“Cheyava Falls” (left) shows the dark hole where NASA’s Perseverance took a core sample; the white patch is where the rover abraded the rock to investigate its composition. A rock nicknamed “Steamboat Mountain” (right) also shows an abrasion patch. This image was taken by Mastcam-Z on July 23.NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS NASA’s Perseverance used its Mastcam-Z instrument to view the “Cheyava Falls” rock sample within the rover’s drill bit. Scientists believe markings on the rock contain fascinating traits that may bear on the question of whether Mars was home to microscopic life in the distant past.NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS “We have designed the route for Perseverance to ensure that it goes to areas with the potential for interesting scientific samples,” said Nicola Fox, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “This trip through the Neretva Vallis riverbed paid off as we found something we’ve never seen before, which will give our scientists so much to study.”
Multiple scans of Cheyava Falls by the rover’s SHERLOC (Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence for Organics & Chemicals) instrument indicate it contains organic compounds. While such carbon-based molecules are considered the building blocks of life, they also can be formed by non-biological processes.
“Cheyava Falls is the most puzzling, complex, and potentially important rock yet investigated by Perseverance,” said Ken Farley,Perseverance project scientist of Caltech in Pasadena. “On the one hand, we have our first compelling detection of organic material, distinctive colorful spots indicative of chemical reactions that microbial life could use as an energy source, and clear evidence that water — necessary for life — once passed through the rock. On the other hand, we have been unable to determine exactly how the rock formed and to what extent nearby rocks may have heated Cheyava Falls and contributed to these features.”
NASA’s Perseverance rover used its Mastcam-Z instrument to capture this 360-degree panorama of a region on Mars called “Bright Angel,” where an ancient river flowed billions of years ago. “Cheyava Falls” was discovered in the area slightly right of center, about 361 feet (110 meters) from the rover.NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS Other details about the rock, which measures 3.2 feet by 2 feet (1 meter by 0.6 meters) and was named after a Grand Canyon waterfall, have intrigued the team, as well.
How Rocks Get Their Spots
In its search for signs of ancient microbial life, the Perseverance mission has focused on rocks that may have been created or modified long ago by the presence of water. That’s why the team homed in on Cheyava Falls.
“This is the kind of key observation that SHERLOC was built for — to seek organic matter as it is an essential component of a search for past life,” said SHERLOC’s principal investigator Kevin Hand of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, which manages the mission.
Running the length of the rock are large white calcium sulfate veins. Between those veins are bands of material whose reddish color suggests the presence of hematite, one of the minerals that gives Mars its distinctive rusty hue.
When Perseverance took a closer look at these red regions, it found dozens of irregularly shaped, millimeter-size off-white splotches, each ringed with black material, akin to leopard spots. Perseverance’s PIXL (Planetary Instrument for X-ray Lithochemistry) instrument has determined these black halos contain both iron and phosphate.
As shown in this graphic, astrobiologists catalog a seven-step scale, called the CoLD (Confidence of Life Detection) scale, to research whether a sample could indicate life. This “Cheyava Falls” sample is an example of Step One: “Detect possible signal.” Much additional research must be conducted to learn more.NASA/Aaron Gronstal “These spots are a big surprise,” said David Flannery, an astrobiologist and member of the Perseverance science team from the Queensland University of Technology in Australia. “On Earth, these types of features in rocks are often associated with the fossilized record of microbes living in the subsurface.”
Spotting of this type on sedimentary terrestrial rocks can occur when chemical reactions involving hematite turn the rock from red to white. Those reactions can also release iron and phosphate, possibly causing the black halos to form. Reactions of this type can be an energy source for microbes, explaining the association between such features and microbes in a terrestrial setting.
In one scenario the Perseverance science team is considering, Cheyava Falls was initially deposited as mud with organic compounds mixed in that eventually cemented into rock. Later, a second episode of fluid flow penetrated fissures in the rock, enabling mineral deposits that created the large white calcium sulfate veins seen today and resulting in the spots.
Another Puzzle Piece
While both the organic matter and the leopard spots are of great interest, they aren’t the only aspects of the Cheyava Falls rock confounding the science team. They were surprised to find that these veins are filled with millimeter-size crystals of olivine, a mineral that forms from magma. The olivine might be related to rocks that were formed farther up the rim of the river valley and that may have been produced by crystallization of magma.
If so, the team has another question to answer: Could the olivine and sulfate have been introduced to the rock at uninhabitably high temperatures, creating an abiotic chemical reaction that resulted in the leopard spots?
“We have zapped that rock with lasers and X-rays and imaged it literally day and night from just about every angle imaginable,” said Farley. “Scientifically, Perseverance has nothing more to give. To fully understand what really happened in that Martian river valley at Jezero Crater billions of years ago, we’d want to bring the Cheyava Falls sample back to Earth, so it can be studied with the powerful instruments available in laboratories.”
More Mission Information
A key objective of Perseverance’s mission on Mars is astrobiology, including caching samples that may contain signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will characterize the planet’s geology and past climate, to help pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet and as the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith.
NASA’s Mars Sample Return Program, in cooperation with ESA (European Space Agency), is designed to send spacecraft to Mars to collect these sealed samples from the surface and return them to Earth for in-depth analysis.
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.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is managed for the agency by Caltech, built and manages operations of the Perseverance rover.
For more about Perseverance:
science.nasa.gov/mission/mars-2020-perseverance
News Media Contacts
DC Agle
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-393-9011
agle@jpl.nasa.gov
Karen Fox / Erin Morton
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600 / 202-805-9393
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / erin.morton@nasa.gov
2024-103
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Last Updated Jul 25, 2024 Related Terms
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By NASA
5 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
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Imagery captured by a navigation camera aboard NASA’s Perseverance rover on Jan. 23 shows the position of a cover on the SHERLOC instrument. The cover had become stuck several weeks earlier but the rover team has since found a way to address the issue so the instrument can continue to operate.NASA/JPL-Caltech After six months of effort, an instrument that helps the Mars rover look for potential signs of ancient microbial life has come back online.
The SHERLOC (Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals) instrument aboard NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover has analyzed a rock target with its spectrometer and camera for the first time since encountering an issue this past January. The instrument plays a key role in the mission’s search for signs of ancient microbial life on Mars. Engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California confirmed on June 17 that the instrument succeeded in collecting data.
“Six months of running diagnostics, testing, imagery and data analysis, troubleshooting, and retesting couldn’t come with a better conclusion,” said SHERLOC principal investigator Kevin Hand of JPL.
Imagery captured by a navigation camera aboard NASA’s Perseverance rover on Jan. 23 shows the position of a cover on the SHERLOC instrument. The cover had become stuck several weeks earlier but the rover team has since found a way to address the issue so the instrument can continue to operate.NASA/JPL-Caltech Mounted on the rover’s robotic arm, SHERLOC uses two cameras and a laser spectrometer to search for organic compounds and minerals in rocks that have been altered in watery environments and may reveal signs of past microbial life. On Jan. 6, a movable lens cover designed to protect the instrument’s spectrometer and one of its cameras from dust became frozen in a position that prevented SHERLOC from collecting data.
Analysis by the SHERLOC team pointed to the malfunction of a small motor responsible for moving the protective lens cover as well as adjusting focus for the spectrometer and the Autofocus and Context Imager (ACI) camera. By testing potential solutions on a duplicate SHERLOC instrument at JPL, the team began a long, meticulous evaluation process to see if, and how, the lens cover could be moved into the open position.
Perseverance’s team used the SHERLOC instrument’s Autofocus and Context Imager to capture this image of its calibration target on May 11 to confirm an issue with a stuck lens cover had been resolved. A silhouette of the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes is at the center of the target.NASA/JPL-Caltech SHERLOC Sleuthing
Among many other steps taken, the team tried heating the lens cover’s small motor, commanding the rover’s robotic arm to rotate the SHERLOC instrument under different orientations with supporting Mastcam-Z imagery, rocking the mechanism back and forth to loosen any debris potentially jamming the lens cover, and even engaging the rover’s percussive drill to try jostling it loose. On March 3, imagery returned from Perseverance showed that the ACI cover had opened more than 180 degrees, clearing the imager’s field of view and enabling the ACI to be placed near its target.
“With the cover out of the way, a line of sight for the spectrometer and camera was established. We were halfway there,” said Kyle Uckert, SHERLOC deputy principal investigator at JPL. “We still needed a way to focus the instrument on a target. Without focus, SHERLOC images would be blurry and the spectral signal would be weak.”
Like any good ophthalmologist, the team set about figuring out SHERLOC’s prescription. Since they couldn’t adjust the focus of the instrument’s optics, they relied on the rover’s robotic arm to make minute adjustments in the distance between SHERLOC and its target in order to get the best image resolution. SHERLOC was commanded to take pictures of its calibration target so that the team could check the effectiveness of this approach.
This image of NASA’s Perseverance rover gathering data on the “Walhalla Glades” abrasion was taken in the “Bright Angel” region of Jezero Crater by one of the rover’s front hazard avoidance cameras on June 14. The WATSON camera on the SHERLOC instrument is closest to the Martian surface.NASA/JPL-Caltech “The rover’s robotic arm is amazing. It can be commanded in small, quarter-millimeter steps to help us evaluate SHERLOC’s new focus position, and it can place SHERLOC with high accuracy on a target,” said Uckert. “After testing first on Earth and then on Mars, we figured out the best distance for the robotic arm to place SHERLOC is about 40 millimeters,” or 1.58 inches. “At that distance, the data we collect should be as good as ever.”
Confirmation of that fine positioning of the ACI on a Martian rock target came down on May 20. The verification on June 17 that the spectrometer is also functional checked the team’s last box, confirming that SHERLOC is operational.
“Mars is hard, and bringing instruments back from the brink is even harder,” said Perseverance project manager Art Thompson of JPL. “But the team never gave up. With SHERLOC back online, we’re continuing our explorations and sample collection with a full complement of science instruments.”
Perseverance is in the later stages of its fourth science campaign, looking for evidence of carbonate and olivine deposits in the “Margin Unit,” an area along the inside of Jezero Crater’s rim. On Earth, carbonates typically form in the shallows of freshwater or alkaline lakes. It’s hypothesized that this also might be the case for the Margin Unit, which formed over 3 billion years ago.
More About the Mission
A key objective of Perseverance’s mission on Mars is astrobiology, including caching samples that may contain signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will characterize the planet’s geology and past climate, pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet, and be the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith.
Subsequent NASA missions, in cooperation with ESA (European Space Agency), would send spacecraft to Mars to collect these sealed samples from the surface and return them to Earth for in-depth analysis.
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.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is managed for the agency by Caltech, built and manages operations of the Perseverance rover.
For more about Perseverance:
science.nasa.gov/mission/mars-2020-perseverance
News Media Contacts
DC Agle
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-393-9011
agle@jpl.nasa.gov
Karen Fox / Charles Blue
NASA Headquarters
202-385-1600 / 202-802-5345
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / charles.e.blue@nasa.gov
2024-091
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Last Updated Jun 26, 2024 Related Terms
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