Helicopter added to NASA s Mars 2020 rover
NASA scientists and members of the Mars mission will discuss the US space agency s latest rover, which touches down on the Red Planet in a month s time on Feb. 18. Besides scientific experiments, the rover will also seek signs of ancient life on the Red Planet.
Ahead of the mission landing, a media briefing will be held on Wednesday, Jan. 27, at 4:30 p.m. EST (1:30 p.m. PST) to discuss the upcoming landing of the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover, said NASA. The event will air live on NASA TV, the agency s website, and YouTube.
NASA s Mars Helicopter, a small, autonomous rotorcraft, will travel with the agency s Mars 2020 rover, currently scheduled to launch in July 2020NASA/JPL-Caltech
Helicopter added to NASA s Mars 2020 rover
The China National Space Administration (CNSA) announced on Sunday that the country s Mars probe Tianwen-1 has travelled more than 400 million km and is expected to enter the Red Planet s orbit next month.
As of 6 a.m. on Sunday, the probe had flown in space for 163 days and was about 130 million km from Earth and about 8.3 million km from Mars, reports Xinhua news agency. According to the CNSA, the probe is functioning stably and is scheduled to slow down before entering Mars orbit in more than a month and preparing itself to land on the Red Planet.
Helicopter added to NASA s Mars 2020 rover
The successful sample collection from asteroid Ryugu by Japan s Hayabusa2 spacecraft and moon surface sample by China s Chang e 5 has set in motion other players to accelerate their missions. US space agency NASA on Thursday announced its approval to Mars Sample Return (MSR) multi-mission to bring the first pristine samples from the Red Planet to Earth, in collaboration with the European Space Agency.
NASA s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover launched in July is set to land on Mars on Feb. 18, 2021. The car-sized rover will search for signs of ancient microbial life using a coring drill at the end of its robotic arm to gather samples of Martian rock and regolith (broken rock and dust), and hermetically seal them in collection tubes.