Web Desk(November 30, 2017): Nasa has revealed the rover that it hopes will find aliens on Mars once and for all.
At present iteration, the Mars 2020 rover features greater autonomy, seven new instruments and updated wheels.
Despite design improvements, the new rover looks a lot like the old rover. And that’s because the Mars 2020 rover utilizes much of the same hardware. In fact, so-called “legacy hardware” accounts for 85 percent of the mass of the new six-legged craft.
“The fact that so much of the hardware has already been designed or even already exists is a major advantage for this mission,” Jim Watzin, director of NASA’s Mars Exploration Program, said.
The slate of new instruments added to Mars 2020 will help the rover explore Martian terrain that once hosted lakes and rivers, regions that may have once hosted life.
The new rover will also be outfitted with improved landing technology. During descent, the rover’s software will compare real-time images of the Martian surface with preloaded images of its landing targets to determine whether to adjust course and when to deploy its parachute.
A new radar system accounts for one of the seven new instruments. It will produce images of rock and ice layers as deep as 30 feet beneath the Martian surface. A new laser will be tasked almost exclusively with hunting for carbon atoms.
It will be the successor to the 2012 Curiosity rover, which is still trundling along the surface of the red planet. It looks very similar, and borrows many of the same technologies, but it will also include a full seven new instruments and re-designed wheels, according to its creators at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
The multiple stages of the Mars 2020 are currently under construction at JPL’s Spacecraft Assembly Facility in Pasadena, Calif.
A cruise stage will be responsible for flying the rover through space, while a descent stage will be tasked with delivering the rover to the Martian surface.
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