NASA's newest Mars rover hit the dusty red road this week, putting 21 feet on
the odometer in its first test drive.
The Perseverance rover ventured from its landing position Thursday, two
weeks after setting down on the red planet to seek signs of past life.
The roundabout, back and forth drive lasted just 33 minutes and went so well
that more driving was on tap Friday and Saturday for the the six-wheeled
rover.
"This is really the start of our journey here," said Rich Rieber, the NASA
engineer who plotted the route. "This is going to be like the Odyssey,
adventures along the way, hopefully no Cyclops, and I'm sure there will be
stories aplenty written about it."
In its first drive, Perseverance went forward 13 feet (4 meters), took a
150-degree left turn, then backed up 8 feet (2.5 meters). During a news
conference Friday, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California,
shared photos of its tracks over and around small rocks.
"I don't think I've ever been happier to see wheel tracks and I've seen a
lot of them," said engineer Anais Zarifian.
NASA’s Perseverance rover wiggles one of its wheels in this set of images
obtained by the rover’s left Navigation Camera on March 4, 2021. Credit:
NASA/JPL-Caltech
Flight controllers are still checking all of Perseverance's systems. So far,
everything is looking good. The rover's 7-foot (2-meter) robot arm, for
instance, flexed its muscles for the first time Tuesday.
Before the car-size rover can head for an ancient river delta to collect
rocks for eventual return to Earth, it must drop its so-called protective
"belly pan" and release an experimental helicopter named Ingenuity.
As it turns out, Perseverance landed right on the edge of a potential
helicopter landing strip—a nice, flat spot, according to Rieber. So the plan
is to drive out of this landing strip, ditch the pan, then return for
Ingenuity's highly anticipated test flight. All this should be accomplished
by late spring.
Scientists are debating whether to take the smoother route to get to the
nearby delta or a possibly tougher way with intriguing remnants from that
once-watery time 3 billion to 4 billion years ago.
Perseverance—NASA's biggest and most elaborate rover yet—became the ninth
U.S. spacecraft to successfully land on Mars on Feb. 18. China hopes to land
its smaller rover—currently orbiting the red planet—in another few months.
NASA scientists, meanwhile, announced Friday that they've named
Perseverance's touchdown site in honor of the late science fiction writer
Octavia E. Butler, who grew up next door to JPL in Pasadena. She was one of
the first African Americans to receive mainstream attention for science
fiction. Her works included "Bloodchild and Other Stories" and "Parable of
the Sower."