Mars Rovers
- Brandon Chang
- Jun 18, 2024
- 5 min read
By Joshua, Catherine, Esther, Alex, Hojung, Jo
The creation of the Mars rovers took a huge amount of hands, and one brilliant idea to create. The person who first inspired the concept of a Mars rover was a man by the name of Carl Sagan in 1996. This idea paved the way for NASA to launch the first-ever rover, Sojourner. Over 24 years later, after the first thought of a Mars rover, Perseverance was launched on July 30, 2020. Nowadays the people behind the thoughts, building, and creating are the scientists and engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. In total, there have been around 7 rovers landed and operated on Mars. Without Carl’s idea we wouldn’t know about, “discoveries about the volcanic history, habitability, and role of water in Jezero Crater,” (“Google.”) These discoveries came from the newest rover Perseverance, but from the first one Sojourner: NASA obtained over sixteen thousand images, more than fifteen chemical analysis, and more data on the weather there. NASA is broken down into departments such as: Pathfinder, this area requires very hands-on work to land the rovers safely on the Red Planet. Another would be NASA's Johnson Space Center where they design and build the rovers themselves. All contributions go to Mr. Sagan, NASA’s departments and the Congress for funding.
Works Cited
Accessed 5 June 2024.
Work Cited
Accessed 5 June 2024.
Works Cited
Accessed 5 June 2024.
Jo- Development:
The first Mars rover, Sojourner, landed on Mars in 1997 and was about the size of a microwave oven according to NASA. The initial blow of landing was softened by the walls of the lander it was encased in, releasing the rover once on the surface. The next rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, were landed on Mars in January of 2004. These two are known as twin rovers, and are remembered for their discovery of the possibility of water on Mars, such as lakes, and rivers, much like on Earth. Curiosity was the fourth rover to be sent to Mars. Its mission was to “determine if the Red Planet ever had the proper conditions for microbial life to survive”, as said by NASA. So in late November, 2011, it was launched to do just that. After its arrival on August 6, 2012, it was determined that some craters on the planet held ingredients that would have been necessary for the survival of ancient life. And finally, Perseverance, landing in February of 2021, making it the most recent addition to the Mars rovers, the fifth ‘robotic explorer’. This rover’s job is to find out more of the history of the Red Planet and figure out some of the possibilities of launching a human mission to Mars. However, its main goal is to “look directly for signs of past life” as explained by NASA’s page on their rovers.
Esther - Timeline:
In order to study Mars and figure out its environmental conditions for life, we sent Mars rovers to Mars. But we didn’t just send one. NASA sent five rovers, for various reasons. The first Mars rover to land on Mars was called Sojourner. Launched on December 4, 1996, Sojourner landed on Mars a year later in July 4, 1997. Sojourner spent 83 days exploring the Martian terrain, taking pictures, and gathering chemical and atmospheric data. Two rovers were then launched in 2004. Sprit, lasted from 2004 to 2010, and Opportunity, which lasted from 2004 to 2018. Spirit and Opportunity were twin rovers who studied the climate and water of Mars. Opportunity began to search for signs ancient water explored the Martian terrain for nearly 15 years, before losing communications with Earth due to a severe dust storm covering its location. Sadly, the Spirit rover became stuck in soft soil and unable to get unstuck with no response, the mission ended. However, both rovers exceeded the expectations on their mission, with both rovers lasting far longer than expected. The fourth rover, Curiosity, is still running today. Landing in 2012, Curiosity was tasked with determining whether Mars was once suited for microbial life. The last rover, Perseverance launched in July 30, 2020, and landed on Mars in February 18, 2021. Today, it is still operating, looking for past signs of life on Mars and studying Jezero Crater, a location on Mars that shows signs of a place that was once habitable. It is also collecting samples of its rocks, and is making many new discoveries about Mars. These data collected by our Mars rovers will help researchers and scientists learn more about planets other than Earth, and will allow us to travel farther from Earth. As our technology advances in the future, there will be more space exploration happening, not just to Mars, but to other planets as well.
Work Cited
“The Mars Rovers.” NASA Space Place, https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/mars-rovers/en/. Accessed 5 June 2024.
Hojung - Relevance in today’s world
Mars rovers help us discover if mars is, or was, suitable for human life. The rover is designed to explore the Martian surface looking for signs of past and present life on the planet to contribute to NASA's Mars Exploration Programme's science goals. A rover can drive around to different areas, studying the different chemicals in each rock. Rovers help scientists in their quest to understand what different parts of the planet are made of. Mars rover collected a wealth of scientific riches on the Martian environment by studying Mars' clouds and dust, the opacity (tau) of its atmosphere, and how those conditions affected its solar panels. Early in its mission, Curiosity's scientific tools found chemical and mineral evidence of past habitable environments on Mars. Mars remains our horizon goal for human exploration because it is one of the only other places we know where life may have existed in the solar system. The year is 2024 on Earth, and Year 37 on Mars, and the Perseverance rover is continuing its exploration of the carbonate-rich terrain of the Margin Unit in Jezero Crater. Mars rover perseverance is important because it is carrying out its mission to identify and collect the most compelling rock cores and other samples of Mars material. In the future, the rovers could go to different planets (except Mars) to check if the other planet is suitable for human life or not.
Joshua:
Many things influenced the Mars rover project but it was most likely inspired by the passion to learn more about Mars and understand if it is possible to explore Mars and live on it. It was also sent to Mars to see if there may be water on the red planet it was launched in 2004. It showed that there may be water on the red planet. And if there is water on the red planet also known `as Mars this could widen our understanding of space and other planets and cause us to learn critical steps of the universe. As stated in source 1 ‘’With a development time of only three years and a total cost of $265 million” it shows that they spent a lot of time and effort to make it and it caused them to spend 265 million dollars on this rove this shows how much time and effort was put into the mars rover. It also had many advancements to help the understanding of the solar system some of the new rovers' spirits and opportunities have many advanced features. The opportunity rover is expected to have a 14-year life span and Spirit has a 6-year life span.
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