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This story is from July 30, 2020

Mars Mission 2020: Nasa set to deploy first-ever helicopter on red planet

We could call July 2020 the month of Mars given three space missions over the last 30 days were all aimed at studying the red planet. The last of the three, Nasa's 'Perseverance' rover is set to take-off for the red neighbour on Thursday, is a six-wheeled robot tasked with deploying a mini helicopter called Ingenuity which will pave way for future human missions.
Ingenuity: NASA's latest mini chopper for Mission Mars
The 1.8 kg helicopter named Ingenuity will be carried by Perseverance rover. (Credits: Nasa)
NEW DELHI: We could call July 2020 the month of Mars given three space missions over the last 30 days were all aimed at studying the red planet. The last of the three, Nasa's 'Perseverance' rover is set to take-off for the red neighbour on Thursday, is a six-wheeled robot tasked with deploying a mini helicopter called Ingenuity which will pave way for future human missions.
Nasa's Perseverance rover
The $2.4 billion mission, slated for liftoff at 7:50 a.m.
ET (1150 GMT) from Florida's Cape Canaveral, is planned as the US space agency's ninth trek to the Martian surface. Launching atop an Atlas 5 rocket from the Boeing-Lockheed joint venture United Launch Alliance, the car-sized Perseverance rover is expected to reach Mars next February.
Perseverance is due to land at the base of an 820-foot-deep (250 meters) crater called Jezero, a former lake from 3.5 billion years ago that scientists believe could hold traces of potential past microbial Martian life. This six-wheeled robot is unlike any robot that Nasa has sent to Mars before because it has the purpose of astrobiology and will try to find evidence of ancient life on Mars.
Perseverance Nasa 635
The six-wheeled robot called Perseverance which will carry Ingenuity. (Credits: Nasa)
Six-wheeled robot 'Perseverance'. (Credits: Nasa)
Scientists understand that any real breakthrough on Mars can only be made if we bring back elements to Earth and study them. Perseverance aims to make that happen.
The rover will attempt for the first time to bring Martian rock samples back to Earth, collecting materials in cigar-sized capsules and leaving them scattered on the surface, which will then be retrieved by a future "fetch" rover. That conceptual rover is expected to launch the samples back into space to link up with other spacecraft for an eventual Earth homecoming around 2031.

Perseverance will also carry out an experiment to convert elements of the carbon dioxide-rich Martian atmosphere into propellant for future rockets launching off the planet's surface or to produce breathable oxygen for future astronauts.
First aircraft on Mars: Ingenuity & the IIT-M alumnus who made it
Perseverance will carry a four-pound (1.8 kg) autonomous helicopter called 'Ingenuity' that is due to test powered flight on Mars for the first time. If this is successful, Nasa could send a robot to Mars in future which could deploy multiple helicopters to study the planet.
Since NASA's first Mars rover Sojourner landed in 1997, the agency has sent two others - Spirit and Opportunity - that have revealed the geology of vast Martian plains and found evidence of past water formations, among other discoveries. NASA also has successfully sent three landers - Pathfinder, Phoenix, InSight.
Bob Balaram, chief engineer of the Mars helicopter project at Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory is an IIT-Madras alumni. He did his Phd in computer & systems engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, New York. About Ingenuity, Balaram had earlier said that if the helicopter succeeds, then it'll be kind of a Wright Brothers moment on another planet.
Seven minutes of terror
One of the most complex manoeuvres in Perseverance's journey will be what mission engineers call the "seven minutes of terror," when the robot endures extreme heat and speeds during its descent through the Martian atmosphere, deploying a set of supersonic parachutes before igniting mini rocket engines to gently touch down on the planet's surface.
Three Mars mission in July 2020
The other two Mars probe this month were launched by the United Arab Emirates (The Hope Probe) and China (Tianwen-1) separately in displays of their own technological prowess and ambition. While the UAE's Hope Probe aims at studying the atmosphere of Mars with the help of an orbiter; China's Tianwen-1 aims to conduct a global survey of the red planet with the help of an orbiter, a lander and a rover.
The choice of all three countries to send their Mars probe in July 2020 is strategic as they try to take advantage of the period of time when the Earth and Mars are nearest: a mere 55 million kilometres (34 million miles).
These three probes also set the narrative for how space exploration is not the prerogative of Euro-American powers but a global enterprise.
(With inputs from Reuters)
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