The diligent robot made its first voyage to Mars and photographed the tracks it left behind

Perseverance in Mars Explorer Its first test ride was performed successfully After landing on the Red Planet two weeks ago, the US space agency NASA said.

In its first transmission on Thursday afternoon, the six-wheeler was used to check that the system was working properly. It covered a distance of 6.5 meters in 33 minutes.

He advanced four meters, turned 150 degrees to the left, and then fell 2.5 meters behind Take a picture of your own wheel tracks on Mars soil, Released by NASA.

“This is the first opportunity we’ll have to test the tires and go diligently for a spin,” said Diligence Motion Engineer Anees Sarifian at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

The test drive went “incredibly well” and marked “a major milestone for the work and movement team,” Jarifian said.

“We’re going to make a few more runs,” he said. “This is just the beginning.”

NASA engineers said they were studying possible paths for long missions to the surface of Mars, probably Friday one and Saturday one, NASA said.

Diligence can travel 200 meters to Mars, which is slightly longer than a day on Earth.

It travels five times faster than its predecessor Curiosity, which landed eight years after landing on Mars.

Engineers are preparing the first plane of the unmanned helicopter to go on the scout, said Robert Hawk, deputy director of diligent work. Hawk said scientists are making flight plans for the first trip in late spring or early summer.

So far, this mission has not encountered any major issues, he said.

“They were small things (…) and everything we tried worked wonderfully.”

Perseverance launched on July 30, 2020 and landed on the surface of Mars on February 18. Its main mission will last a little over two years, but it is likely to continue to operate for a long time.

In the coming years, diligence will attempt to collect 30 rock and soil samples in sealed tubes that will be sent to Earth for analysis in the 2030s.

About the size of an off-road vehicle, the craft weighs a ton and features a two-meter-long robot arm, 19 cameras, two microphones and a set of sophisticated equipment.

You have sent over 7,000 photos so farThe sophisticated French-made camera is the size of a shoebox, capable of firing a laser beam at rocks up to seven meters away for analysis – including one from a light brown rock used to test a device called a supercam. His organization.

Perseverance is the fifth rover to put his wheels on Mars, and they are all Americans. This feat was first performed in 1997.

Although planning is still in its infancy, the United States is preparing for a human mission to the planet.

With information from AFP

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