Perseverance scientist impressed with aerial images of location considered
for rover exploration.
Ask any space explorer, and they’ll have a favorite photograph or two from
their mission. For Ken Farley, the project scientist for NASA’s Perseverance
rover, one of his current favorites is a color image of “South Seítah,” an
area the mission’s science team had considered potentially worthy of a rover
visit. The agency’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter took the image during its 12th
and most recent flight, on August 16.
Prior to Ingenuity’s latest flight, the majority of what the Perseverance
science team knew of the southern portion of the Seítah feature came from
orbiter images. Based on that data, they believed the site could possibly be
a treasure trove of complex geology, providing information that could play a
valuable role as the rover team searches for signs of ancient microbial life
and attempts to characterize the geology of the area and to understand the
area’s history.
They used the rotorcraft’s images to look for signs of layered, sedimentary
rock that could have been deposited in water, intriguing rocky outcrops
accessible to the rover, and safe routes the rover could take into and back
out of the area.
“From a science perspective, these images of South Seítah are the most
valuable Ingenuity has taken to date,” said Farley, who’s based at Caltech.
“And part of their value may be in what they are not showing. Sedimentary
layers in rocks are not readily apparent in the image, and there may be
areas that could be difficult to negotiate with the rover. There is work to
do by our science and rover driving teams to understand better how to
respond to the new data.”
Ingenuity obtained 10 images of the area as it flew into and then back out
of South Seítah at an altitude of 33 feet (10 meters). The flight was one of
the most complicated the helicopter team has executed so far – the
longest-duration flight to date (169.5 seconds) with multiple waypoints as
it flew from relatively non-descript terrain outside South Seítah into much
more varied terrain inside, and then back out again.
“What this image may be saying is, we don’t need to drive further west to
obtain the best geologic variety of this first science campaign,” said
Farley. “If we decide to make the trip to South Seítah, we’ve got some
valuable intel on what we’ll encounter. And if the decision is to stick
around ‘Artuby Ridge,’ the rover’s current location, we’ll have saved
valuable time. It’s a win-win.”
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Space & Astrophysics