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At least 19 records

Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover Studies of the Martian Atmosphere Over Jezero From Pressure Measurements

The pressure sensors on Mars rover Perseverance measure the pressure field in the Jezero crater on regular hourly basis starting in sol 15 after landing. The present study extends up to sol 460 encompassing the range of solar longitudes from Ls ∼ 13°–241° (Martian Year (MY) 36). The data show the changing daily pressure cycle, the sol-to-sol seasonal evolution of the mean pressure field driven by the CO2 sublimation and deposition cycle at the poles, the characterization of up to six components of the atmospheric tides and their relationship to dust content in the atmosphere. They also show the presence of wave disturbances with periods 2–5 sols, exploring their baroclinic nature, short period oscillations (mainly at night-time) in the range 8–24 min that we interpret as internal gravity waves, transient pressure drops with duration ∼1–150 s produced by vortices, and rapid turbulent fluctuations. We also analyze the effects on pressure measurements produced by a regional dust storm over Jezero at Ls ∼ 155°.

A. Sánchez-Lavega↗

Preparing the Mars Relay Network for the Arrival of the Perseverance Rover at Mars

The Perseverance rover represents NASA’s latest achievement in Mars exploration. Landing successfully on 18 Feb 2021, the rover’s transmitted data during its entry, descent, and landing (EDL) were captured by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) orbiter. This data, broadcast in near-realtime to the world, allowed everyone to share in the excitement (and “terror”) of the day. The images returned thereafter included the first images of the new landing site, video of the landing itself taken from a variety of vantage points, and eventually the historic images of the first powered flight on another planet. Behind the scenes, the return of that data to Earth was accomplished via Mars orbiters operated by NASA and ESA, using three different ground tracking networks. Considered together, this Mars Relay Network (MRN) enabled the successful, timely, and unobtrusive return of the rover’s data. This paper describes the preparations taken by the participants of the MRN in anticipation of the arrival of Perseverance at Mars. These were not only focused on successfully acquiring the rover’s critical event telemetry during its EDL, but also on readying the network to return the rover’s data on an ongoing basis as it pursued its mission objectives. Included is a brief description of the MRN, which represents a highly successful international collaboration and continues as critical infrastructure for NASA’s and ESA’s ongoing Mars exploration. Also summarized are the activities performed prior to EDL, including landing site reconnaissance and mission test and training activities; those activities performed on EDL day, especially the recording, return, and processing of the rover’s critical event telemetry; and those activities that are now being performed on an ongoing basis during the rover’s surface operations, including an outline of the planning processes that enable relay services. Finally, a description of the performance of the network to-date on behalf of the Perseverance rover is given, summarizing the success of the network to provide support to both it and other spacecraft on the surface of Mars.

Srnka, Evan↗

COCPIT: Collaborative Activity Planning Software for Mars Perseverance Rover

Since landing on the Martian surface, the Perseverance rover has relied on a distributed team to generate commands for exploring its new environment each sol(Martian day). The team uses a complex suite of software tools to accomplish this challenging task in time for the next window of opportunity to send commands to the rover. A key piece of this software ecosystem is COCPIT (Component-based Campaign Planning, Implementation, and Tactical). COCPIT is part of the next generation of planning and scheduling software tools developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in partnership with NASA's Ames Research Center. COCPIT is a web-based application that allows users to collaboratively view and update the Perseverance rover's activity plans, continuously verify that the plan satisfies constraints, assign targets for directing scientific instruments, document science intent, and model power and data resources. Mars Surface Operations requires diverse expertise from team members within the Engineering, Science, Robotic, and Instrument Operations groups, distributed across North America and Europe. In order to improve efficiency and reduce risk, all teams are able to review and edit their activities simultaneously and see the effects on the plan in its entirety. As part of the Ground Data System (GDS) tool suite, COCPIT is responsible for the activity plan. It provides specialized views that allow operators to understand where there may be room for additional observations, see whether any planning constraints are being violated, and confirm that energy usage and data generation are within the defined limits. It contains details such as which filters a camera will use for a given observation, what the resolution of the images should be, where to store the data onboard, and how long the observation is expected to take. It predicts when specific data will be downlinked from the rover to a passing orbiter, so that the team knows when to expect that data on Earth for evaluation in future planning. Ultimately the information from the COCPIT plan is translated to sequences that will be bundled and radiated to Perseverance for execution. The COCPIT tool is used throughout all planning phases.

activity planning↗

COCPIT: Collaborative Activity Planning Software for Mars Perseverance Rover

Since landing on the Martian surface, the Perseverance rover has relied on a distributed team to generate commands for exploring its new environment each sol(Martian day). The team uses a complex suite of software tools to accomplish this challenging task in time for the next window of opportunity to send commands to the rover. A key piece of this software ecosystem is COCPIT (Component-based Campaign Planning, Implementation, and Tactical). COCPIT is part of the next generation of planning and scheduling software tools developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in partnership with NASA's Ames Research Center. COCPIT is a web-based application that allows users to collaboratively view and update the Perseverance rover's activity plans, continuously verify that the plan satisfies constraints, assign targets for directing scientific instruments, document science intent, and model power and data resources. Mars Surface Operations requires diverse expertise from team members within the Engineering, Science, Robotic, and Instrument Operations groups, distributed across North America and Europe. In order to improve efficiency and reduce risk, all teams are able to review and edit their activities simultaneously and see the effects on the plan in its entirety. As part of the Ground Data System (GDS) tool suite, COCPIT is responsible for the activity plan. It provides specialized views that allow operators to understand where there may be room for additional observations, see whether any planning constraints are being violated, and confirm that energy usage and data generation are within the defined limits. It contains details such as which filters a camera will use for a given observation, what the resolution of the images should be, where to store the data onboard, and how long the observation is expected to take. It predicts when specific data will be downlinked from the rover to a passing orbiter, so that the team knows when to expect that data on Earth for evaluation in future planning. Ultimately the information from the COCPIT plan is translated to sequences that will be bundled and radiated to Perseverance for execution. The COCPIT tool is used throughout all planning phases.

activity planning↗

COCPIT: Collaborative Activity Planning Software for Mars Perseverance Rover

Since landing on the Martian surface, the Perseverance rover has relied on a distributed team to generate commands for exploring its new environment each sol (Martian day). The team uses a complex suite of software tools to accomplish this challenging task in time for the next window of opportunity to send commands to the rover. A key piece of this software ecosystem is COCPIT (Component-based Campaign Planning, Implementation, and Tactical). COCPIT is part of the next generation of planning and scheduling software tools developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in partnership with NASA's Ames Research Center. COCPIT is a web-based application that allows users to collaboratively view and update the Perseverance rover's activity plans, continuously verify that the plan satisfies constraints, assign targets for directing scientific instruments, document science intent, and model power and data resources. Mars Surface Operations requires diverse expertise from team members within the Engineering, Science, Robotic, and Instrument Operations groups, distributed across North America and Europe. In order to improve efficiency and reduce risk, all teams are able to review and edit their activities simultaneously and see the effects on the plan in its entirety. As part of the Ground Data System (GDS) tool suite, COCPIT is responsible for the activity plan. It provides specialized views that allow operators to understand where there may be room for additional observations, see whether any planning constraints are being violated, and confirm that energy usage and data generation are within the defined limits. It contains details such as which filters a camera will use for a given observation, what the resolution of the images should be, where to store the data onboard, and how long the observation is expected to take. It predicts when specific data will be downlinked from the rover to a passing orbiter, so that the team knows when to expect that data on Earth for evaluation in future planning. Ultimately the information from the COCPIT plan is translated to sequences that will be bundled and radiated to Perseverance for execution. The COCPIT tool is used throughout all planning phases.

Kanefsky, Bob↗

Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover Surface Operations Commissioning Phase Overview

This paper presents work done by the Mars 2020 Project to plan, test, and execute the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover surface operations commissioning phase. Immediately after the successful landing of Mars 2020 Perseverance rover at Jezero Crater on February 18, 2021, the rover autonomously initiated mission critical commanding necessary to transition the vehicle from a Cruise/EDL to Surface operations configuration. This began the surface operations commissioning phase, referred to as Surface Operations Transition (SOX). The objective of SOX phase is to establish vehicle health and safety and to verify that the operational characteristics of the vehicle, now operating in the Martian environment, are as-expected and safe to proceed into nominal operations. The SOX commissioning phase is organized into six logical sub-phases occurring in the following chronological order; (1) SOX1a, (2) FSW Transition, (3) SOX1b, (4) SOX2a, (5) Heli, (6) SOX2b. In total, the SOX commissioning phase was expected to take up-to 111 sols (Martian days). The Perseverance rover is an extremely complex, highly-integrated, robotic system-of-systems that requires numerous activities to incrementally and methodically verify their safe operations. This paper will discuss the development process used to plan, test, and execute the SOX commissioning phase for Mars 2020 Perseverance rover surface operations. We will discuss key challenges associated with SOX development as well as actual operations execution experience.

Koch, Justin↗

Provenance of Sediments in the Jezero Delta From Perseverance Rover and Orbital Observations.

The Perseverance rover is exploring an ancient delta in Jezero crater to search for potential biosignatures and collect samples for return to Earth by Mars Sample Return [1]. Understanding the source (provenance) of the sediments and how it changes in the delta stratigraphy will be important for developing hypotheses for the origin and transport history of potential biosignatures, will help constrain the evolution of the delta and watershed through time, and will enable us to identify the origin of detrital grains from outside Jezero in sandstones and conglomerate samples collected by Perseverance. In this study, we constrain the provenance of delta sediments by studying the distribution of primary mafic minerals detected using spectroscopy at rover and orbital scales.

B Horgan↗

Exploring the Jezero Delta Front: Overview of Results From the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover’s Second Science Campaign

The Perseverance rover landed in Jezero crater on February 18, 2021, with the mission goals to explore the geology, astrobiological potential, and modern environment of the crater floor and delta, and to collect and cache well-documented samples for Mars Sample Return. After completion of the “Crater Floor” science campaign, the rover conducted a rapid traverse (sols 379-414) to the Three Forks region of the crater floor adjacent to the delta front. From here, Perseverance’s second “Delta Front” science campaign (DFC) began on Sol 415, April 20, 2022. The DFC has explored two lobes of the delta front, the neighboring crater floor, and their contact zone, focusing on the lowest geologic exposures composing the Jezero delta (largely mapped within the delta “thin layered unit”). As of January 1, 2023, Perseverance has covered 14325 km of traverse distance and collected 15 rock sample cores, 2 regolith samples, 1 atmospheric sample, and 3 witness tubes, employing a sample pair strategy where each unique sample is paired with a companion sample core from the same location, to enable the construction of two different caches. After sample depot construction at Three Forks, the DFC will conclude upon re-ascent of the delta front, and the next “Delta Top” science campaign will start.

Mars 2020 Mission↗

Exploring the Jezero Crater Floor: Overview of Results from the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover’s First Science Campaign

The Perseverance rover embarked on its first science campaign after landing in Jezero crater on February 18, 2021 and completing ~90 days of commissioning and Ingenuity helicopter activities. During this first campaign, Perseverance explored a large swath of Jezero’s crater floor, investigating and sampling several of the topographically lowest, and potentially oldest, rocks within the crater. Crater floor units: Perseverance explored the Máaz and Séítah formations (previously mapped as the Crater Floor Fractured Rough; Cf-fr and Crater Floor Fractured 1; Cf-f-1 units[1]). These are both widespread units in the crater that potentially correlate with units outside Jezero [2-4]. The Máaz fm. was distinguished from orbit by its mafic composition and densely cratered surface, and has various hypothesized origins, including lava flows[2] and volcaniclastic airfall [3]. The Máaz fm. is important for providing age/stratigraphic constraints on the Jezero western delta. If igneous, returned Máaz fm. samples may aid in calibrating the Mars crater chronology [2,5]and understanding Mars paleomagnetism and early igneous processes(see [6]). The Séítah fm. is olivine-bearing and has been interpreted to be related to a regional unit exposed along the inner rim of Jezero crater walls and occurs more broadly in the Nili Planum and Nili Fossae region. The olivine-bearing unit and its possible correlatives has a wide range of hypothesized origins including volcaniclastic airfall, impact melt, or aeolian and fluvial deposits [2-4,7,8]. The Séítahfm.is likely the oldest unit accessible to Perseverance and represents an important part of Jezero’s pre-delta-lacustrine history. As in the Máaz fm., the lithochemistry of the samples will help studies of early Mars igneous processes. The olivine-and carbonate-bearing components of this unit may also signify habitable conditions early in Jezero’s history, samples of which would be of high geochemical and astrobiological significance, as well as for understanding the martian carbon cycle(see [9]).

Mars 2020↗

Perseverance Rover’s Robotic Arm and Turret Mounted Instruments’ Surface Commissioning

The Robotic Arm (RA) on the Perseverance rover is an integral component of the Sampling and Caching System necessary for completing the science goals of the Mars 2020 mission. While the Perseverance rover was based on the Curiosity rover which landed in 2012, the Robotic Arm was redesigned to carry a much larger turret with a new suite of payloads. Shortly after Perseverance landed in Jezero Crater, a series of checkouts was completed with the RA during the first 100 sols of the mission in order to ensure proper functionality of the RA and the instruments mounted on the turret. This period of time in the mission was called Surface Operations Transition (SOX). The objective of SOX was to systematically execute checkout activities for all the basic functionality so that the RA and instruments, as well as other rover components, could be released for scientific exploration.RA activities during SOX can be divided into a few different categories: Mechanism Checkouts, Rover Visual Inspections, Performance Characterization, and Instrument Functional Checkouts. Many of these checkouts built off of each other such that each subsequent activity would verify incrementally complex functionality. Many of the defined activities were executed several times throughout the development of the rover and served as a check that the RA’s performance is consistent with testing on Earth. Other activities were developed uniquely for SOX to respond to challenges discovered during development. They were designed to be verifiable without the help of ground support equipment or previous executions on the flight hardware to compare against.This paper discusses the formulation and conception of the various RA SOX checkout activities, verification and testing required to certify them for flight, execution of the activities on Mars, issues encountered, and finally results and findings as the mission transitioned to nominal science operations. We will be presenting the results and analysis using downlinked imaging and data from the flight vehicle to show how we verified the performance of the Robotic Arm and the turret mounted instruments in order to transition to science operations with a clean bill of health.

Edgett, Kenneth↗

Hexagonal Prisms Form in Water-ice Clouds on Mars, Producing Halo Displays Seen by Perseverance Rover

Observations by several cameras on the Perseverance rover showed a 22° scattering halo around the Sun over several hours during northern midsummer (solar longitude 142°). Such a halo has not previously been seen beyond Earth. The halo occurred during the aphelion cloud belt season and the cloudiest time yet observed from the Perseverance site. The halo required crystalline water-ice cloud particles in the form of hexagonal columns large enough for refraction to be significant, at least 11 μm in diameter and length. From a possible 40-50 km altitude, and over the 3.3-hour duration of the halo, particles could have fallen 3-12 km, causing downward transport of water and dust. Halo-forming clouds are likely rare due to the high supersaturation of water that is required but may be more common in northern subtropical regions during northern midsummer.

M.T. Lemmon↗

Astrobiological Potential of Rocks Acquired By the Perseverance Rover in Jezero Crater, Mars

The scientific community has prioritized the return of Martian rock samples with known geologic context for more than a decade (Beatty et al., 2019). Thus, the main objectives of the Perseverance rover mission on Mars include identifying past habitable environments, collecting rocks that are likely to preserve biosignaturesand using the rover’s instruments to look for potential biosignatures in these rocks (Farley et al., 2020). Here, we present an overview of the bedrock samples collected bythe Perseverance rover in Jezero crater to date and discuss the potential of the sampled materials to address astrobiological questions upon sample return to Earth.

Mars 2020↗

Camera Simulation for the Perseverance Rover’s Lander Vision System

On February 18, 2021, the Perseverance Rover safely landed on Mars at Jezero Crater. Part of the successful landing was due to the Lander Vision System (LVS), which takes descent images from the LVS Camera (LCAM) and IMU measurements and estimates the lander position relative to a map of the Jezero landing site. The LVS Simulation LCAM (LVSS LCAM) model is an image rendering program developed to test the LVS in a variety of scenarios to ensure performance amid uncertainty. The LVSS LCAM model includes a pointing misalignment model, an exposure timing model, shadowing, a terrain reflectance model, atmospheric attenuation from dust, and sensor effects. This model was used for performance analysis, verification, and validation of the LVS algorithms in a Mars-like simulation prior to landing. This paper describes the LVSS LCAM rendering algorithm and compares flight images from LVS operation during the Perseverance landing with their rendered counterparts.

Zheng, Jason↗

Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover SHERLOC Instrument Isolation System

The NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) successfully landed the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover at Jezero Crater on the Martian surface. Perseverance’s main mission objective is to cache Martian rock and regolith samples in hermetically sealed tubes to be brought back to Earth by future missions. To achieve this goal the rover is equipped with a 2-meter-long Robotic Arm (RA) which manipulates the Turret to interact with the surface. The Turret is comprised of science instruments and tools that enable surface sampling and science. The backbone of the Turret hardware is the Rotary Percussive Coring Drill. The science instruments, which are directly mounted to the structural housing of this drill, must be able to withstand not only the launch and entry, descent and landing (EDL) loads of the vehicle but also the dynamic percussive environment, induced by the drill throughout surface operations. This paper discusses the technical hardware design, development and testing of a vibration isolation system to protect the Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman and Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals (SHERLOC) Instrument from these dynamic environments. The hardware design aspect of this problem was limited by both size and mass constraints. The Turret is tightly configured and the physical space in which hardware can reside is restricted due to multiple axes of surface interaction points. Another driving requirement is the extreme range of thermal non-operational environment from -135C to +90C. This, in addition to SHERLOC being a heavier instrument than previously integrated on a turret, made the use of isolation systems employed on previous rover missions problematic. The final design incorporates custom wire mesh springs preloaded within titanium hexapod struts equipped with flexure ends. Custom versions of commercially available wire mesh springs were designed and tested. These custom springs differed in dimension, density and stiffness from the off the shelf options. The newly designed springs went through various stages of flight acceptance testing. Detailed physics-based modeling to understand what loads the isolation system would experience was used to define the test conditions for the springs and entire isolation subsystem. The testing program developed around this was extensive to fully characterize the isolation performance over cleanliness levels, temperature and life. Another major aspect of this work was developing a method of replicating the drill’s percussive environment for performance and life testing of Turret mounted hardware. Attaching the instrument to an operating drill for testing was not a viable option. A method of using a Highly Accelerated Life Test (HALT) table was developed and applied across the project as the most representative and tunable option to physically simulate this new environment. This method, along with launch environment random vibration testing, was used to build an entire dynamic qualification and flight hardware test program. The results of the design, modeling, testing and analysis of the SHERLOC Isolation System is described throughout the following paper.

Krafchak, Todd↗

Overview and Results From the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover's First Science Campaign on the Jezero Crater Floor

The Mars 2020 Perseverance rover landed in Jezero crater on 18 February 2021. After a 100-sol period of commissioning and the Ingenuity Helicopter technology demonstration, Perseverance began its first science campaign to explore the enigmatic Jezero crater floor, whose igneous or sedimentary origins have been much debated in the scientific community. This paper describes the campaign plan developed to explore the crater floor's Máaz and Séítah formations and summarizes the results of the campaign between sols 100–379. By the end of the campaign, Perseverance had traversed more than 5 km, created seven abrasion patches, and sealed nine samples and a witness tube. Analysis of remote and proximity science observations show that the Máaz and Séítah formations are igneous in origin and composed of five and two geologic members, respectively. The Séítah formation represents the olivine-rich cumulate formed from differentiation of a slowly cooling melt or magma body, and the Máaz formation likely represents a separate series of lava flows emplaced after Séítah. The Máaz and Séítah rocks also preserve evidence of multiple episodes of aqueous alteration in secondary minerals like carbonate, Fe/Mg phyllosilicates, sulfates, and perchlorate, and surficial coatings. Post-emplacement processes tilted the rocks near the Máaz-Séítah contact and substantial erosion modified the crater floor rocks to their present-day expressions. Results from this crater floor campaign, including those obtained upon return of the collected samples, will help to build the geologic history of events that occurred in Jezero crater and provide time constraints on the formation of the Jezero delta.

Mars 2020↗

Geological, Multispectral, and Meteorological Imaging Results from the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover in Jezero Crater

Perseverance’s Mastcam-Z instrument provides high-resolution stereo and multispectral images with a unique combination of spatial resolution, spatial coverage, and wavelength coverage along the rover’s traverse in Jezero crater, Mars. Images reveal rocks consistent with an igneous (including volcanic and/or volcaniclastic) and/or impactite origin and limited aqueous alteration, including polygonally fractured rocks with weathered coatings; massive boulder-forming bedrock consisting of mafic silicates, ferric oxides, and/or iron-bearing alteration minerals; and coarsely layered outcrops dominated by olivine. Pyroxene dominates the iron-bearing mineralogy in the fine-grained regolith, while olivine dominates the coarse-grained regolith. Solar and atmospheric imaging observations show significant intra- and intersol variations in dust optical depth and water ice clouds, as well as unique examples of boundary layer vortex action from both natural (dust devil) and Ingenuity helicopter–induced dust lifting. High-resolution stereo imaging also provides geologic context for rover operations, other instrument observations, and sample selection, characterization, and confirmation.

Mars 2020↗

Perseverance Rover Collision Model for a range of Autonomous Behaviors

The NASA Mars 2020 Perseverance rover landed in Jezero crater on Mars on 18 February 2021. It is a science mission to collect and cache sample cores for possible return to Earth in the future. Robot collision modeling is traditionally used in robotics for hardware safety for manipulation and sampling. The Mars 2020 Rover Collision Model (RCM) optimizes and extends collision checking in innovative ways to provide a range of onboard autonomous capability on a computationally constrained system. It provides an example of the benefit of systems and operations cognizant software design and development of autonomous systems.

Klein, Douglas↗

Making or Breaking a Rover: System Engineering Parameters On-Board the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover

On February 18, 2021, Perseverance, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s (JPL’s) Mars 2020 Rover, successfully landed on Mars with all systems nominal, despite the risk surrounding the over 200,000 internal flight parameters that had to be properly configured. The Perseverance team defines these parameters as software variables that are configurable, commandable and retrievable from Earth. In 2015, the Mars 2020 project leaders focused on improving systems engineering of parameters based on their experiences from parameter management on previous Mars rovers (Curiosity, Opportunity, Spirit, and Pathfinder) and parameter failures of past missions, such as the mission-ending parameter of the Mars Climate Orbiter. The new rigorous development process allowed for efficient certification and effective implementation of the parameters, allowing the rover to approach and land on the red planet (the most challenging phase of the mission) with zero parameter issues. Although successful, the Perseverance team learned many lessons for how to better manage parameters for the continued surface operations of the Mars 2020 mission and future missions. This paper will discuss eight parameter-management topics for the Perseverance Mission. The first is parameter definition: how we define parameters on our mission, where they are physically located on the vehicle, and why we have so many of them. The second topic is the updated parameter flight software module from Curiosity, including details on the 99% reduction in parameter commands, new bulk configuration capabilities, and improved parameter traceability. The third topic is parameter selection for different mission phases; this includes improving and tweaking our preferred parameter settings until they become certification candidates and managing parameter configurations based on test venue throughout the mission life cycle. The fourth topic is our flight certification process; this includes certification of flight values for four different epochs in the mission: Launch, Entry Decent and Landing (EDL) - 6days, Landing + 5 Sols (Martian Days, still on Cruise Flight Software), and once are on Surface Flight Software (FSW). The fifth topic covers in-flight command implementation, along with details on testing, validation, and verification of those commands. In the sixth section, we will explain our use of open-source management tools, including how we used GitHub for version control and management approvals. The seventh topic will describe the ground tools used in operations, including capabilities of the in-house built tool called Parasol. The eighth and final topic will dig into lessons learned for improving parameter management in the future of this mission and others.

Roth, Brian↗