RVD NASA PIONEERING THE RED PLANET

Adventures on

Mars has always obsessed humankind - the Red planet, the ‘New Earth’. And with the recent successful landing of NASA’s Curiosity rover, is closer than ever. Ever since 1960, we have actively been sending probes and rovers to observe the planet, but not without defeat. The road to the red planet is long, and the landing is rough. And since we do not have the technology yet to bring pieces of Mars to our laboratories, we’ll have to bring the laboratories to Mars.

TEXT Ivo van der Peijl and Marijn Veraart, Students Aerospace Engineering, President and Treasurer of the 27th Space Department.

THE EARLY DAYS ther attempts, the Mars 4 through 7, were velocity of 1cm/s. The task of the rov- Between October 10, 1960 and 1967, six all partially successful. They all gathered er was to examine rocks nearby the land- Mars missions were undertaken, ! ve by some data, but none of them were able to ing site. Equipped with an Alpha Particle the USSR and one by USA. This was maybe either enter the intended orbit, or make a X-ray Spectrometer (APXS), the composi- too ambitious for the early days, because successful landing. tion of rocks could be determined. two failed to reach earth orbit, two failed It was NASA who had the next success. The oldest Mars-related spacecraft that is to leave it and two had problems en route. The Viking 1 landed on the Martian sur- still in use today is the 2001 Mars Odys- It was December 20, 1967 when the Mari- face July 20, 1976, shortly followed by the sey. This spacecraft is orbiting Mars at an ner 4, an American Mars " yby probe, " ew Viking 2. These identical orbiters and land- altitude of approximately 3,800km. The by the surface, and sent back 22 close-up ers were sent to the planet to take photo- Odyssey has multiple objectives. It uses photos. Man’s ! rst successful " ight to Mars graphs, collect scienti! c data and perform its three main instruments for studying was a fact. Reaching it was now possible. some biology experiments in search of the radiation environment, determining Landing was the next logical step. extra-terrestrial life. Unexpectedly, chemi- the distribution of minerals and determin- cal activity was found in the soil, but no ing the presence of twenty chemical ele- PIONEERING THE SURFACE evidence of microorganisms. Scientists ments. A second task is to support other The USSR had the ! rst landing success. believe Mars sterilizes itself. They think Mars missions. The orbiter provides a Their 1,210kg Mars 2 lander crashed on the combination of extreme dryness, the communications relay for the rovers , the surface of Mars, but was the ! rst man- oxidizing nature of the soil and the solar Opportunity and Curiosity. At this made machine to actually touch the plan- ultraviolet radiation prevents the forma- moment, 95% of all the data collected by et. Only ! ve days later, the Mars 3 lander tion of living organisms. the Curiosity is sent through the Mars Od- made a successful landing, but operated The Mars Path! nder was the next step in yssey. for only ! fteen seconds, just enough time Mars exploration. It was the ! rst successful The record for the longest operating rov- to take one picture of the horizon. The ex- lander that carried a rover, the Sojourner. ers is held by the Mars Exploration Rovers, act reason for the lost communication was After the successful landing in 1997, the named Spirit and Opportunity. Or spe- unknown. Researchers suspected a dust landing site was renamed the Carl ci! cally, in the hands of the Opportunity, storm was responsible for both the de- Memorial Station, in honor of the astrono- which is three weeks younger than the struction of the communication system, mer. Sojourner was a small rover. With its Spirit. Communication was lost with Spirit and the bad quality of the picture. Fur- 10.5kg, the 30cm tall rover travelled at a in 2010, after 2,208 Martian days, a stun-

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RVD 0313.indd 32 3/1/13 11:11 ning 2,118 days more than planned. Both rovers landed in January 2004. Their main goal was to ! nd information about wa- ter on Mars. Therefore, their landing sites NASA were speci! cally chosen. Spirit landed in Crater, a possible former lake. Op- portunity landed in , where minerals could contain clues. The Mars Exploration Rovers have sur- vived a complete change of seasons. They withstood changes in temperature, radia- tion and dust storms. In doing this, they collected vital information that can and will be used in future Mars missions.

CURIOSITY In the evening of August 5, 2012 the Cu- riosity rover, the most technologically advanced rover ever built, landed in Mars’ Crater. The Curiosity’s main mission, also known as the Mars Science Laborato- ry, is to determine whether Mars ever was, Figure 1. A ! gure showing the di" erent stages of the Curiosity descent. or is, habitable to microbial life. To do this the rover is equipped with seventeen dif- Therefore, after the last half year of driv- REFERENCES ferent cameras and a robotic arm contain- ing, snapping pictures, scooping up dirt ing advanced laboratory-like instruments and zapping at rocks, Curiosity has started Chronology of Mars exploration: and tools. its trek to – a trek that will http://history.nasa.gov/marschro.htm One of the most interesting parts of the take up 9 months. This road trip brings mission was the unique landing (Fig. 1). great expectations, as it is the main reason Viking mission: This specialized landing sequence, which that the rover was targeted to land in the http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/cata- included a giant parachute, a jet-con- Gale Crater. Expectations are high as Cu- log/PIA09703 trolled descent vehicle and a bungee-sys- riosity’s job is to ! gure out if the landing tem called the ‘sky-crane’, was required be- site had the correct environmental condi- Path! nder mission: tions to support basic forms of life. It could cause the landing techniques for previous http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/MPF/index1. rover missions could not accommodate also have been a six-month journey when html the larger and heavier rover. The Curios- driving nonstop, but scientists will want to ity actually has the size of a small Mini- command the rover to rest and study the NASA Mars Rover Overview rocks along the way. It now will be a nine- Cooper and at $2.5 billion; it is the most http://marsrovers.nasa.gov/overview/ expensive mission to the Red Planet yet. month odyssey… The hope for the question of life on Mars NASA Curiosity Overview peaked at the end of November last year, THE FUTURE OF MARS EXPLORATION Recently, a surprising announcement http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/ when mission chief scientist John Grotz- details.php?id=5918 inger came with the news: “This data is from NASA came with respect to near fu- ture Mars exploration. It will send another going to be one for the history books. It’s NASA Curiosity article looking really good”. Of course, a lot of rover to Mars in 2020. Mixed reactions fol- http://www.boston.com/news/sci- excitement raged in the newspapers and lowed, as to why NASA keeps focusing on ence/2012/12/03/mars-rover-curiosi- on the Internet. NASA later clari! ed that Mars while there are ice-covered moons ty-surprise-soil-test/IoYQVJlRSJXTzjJ- like Saturn’s Titan, which remain relatively Grotzinger’s (it is in the name) news re- q3QW8NO/story.html ferred to the mission itself and not to spe- unexplored. On the other hand it simply ci! c results. Indeed later, they came with makes a lot of sense to conduct this new http://articles.timeso! ndia. indiatimes.com/2012-12-31/sci- the statement that the rover had indeed mission, as it will be built from Curiosity’s ence/36079075_1_mars-rover-curios- found something in the dirt, but there was spare parts, can make use of the same ity-mount-sharp-gale-crater no big news from the ! rst soil test. So far, landing technique and has prevailing pos- itive conditions (until now the Curiosity is there is no de! nitive sign of chemical in- Future of Mars exploration gredient necessary to support life. a big success). Now the question can be asked, what did Of course, new instruments will be pres- http://www.extremetech.com/ extreme/142414-nasa-will-send- Curiosity ! nd in the soil? Water, sulphur ent in the $1.5 billion-budgeted Curiosity a-second-curiosity-rover-to-mars- and perchlorate, an oxidizing salt, also II. NASA has been hinting that it is interest- in-2020 detected during a previous Mars mission, ed in a “sample catch” that will collect and and the remnants of an ancient stream- store Martian soil samples. These samples bed. As said by mission scientist Ralf Gel- would be collected by a future (manned?) SPACE DEPARTMENT lert: “This is typical, ordinary Martian soil.” mission to Mars, and returned to Earth Some interesting hints of a simple carbon for further analysis. As said by NASA ad- The Space Department promotes as- compound have been found in the soil, ministrator Charles Bolden: “The Obama tronautics among the students and it only needs to be determined if it is na- administration is committed to a robust employees of the faculty of Aerospace tive to the Red Planet, or hitchhiked from Mars exploration program. With this next Engineering at Earth or came from space. It is believed by mission, we’re ensuring America remains Delft University of Technology by or- scientists that the best chance of ! nding the world leader in exploration of the Red ganizing lectures life supporting carbon is at Mount Sharp, a Planet, while taking another signi! cant and excursions. ! ve kilometers high mountain in the cen- step toward sending humans there in the ter of the Gale Crater. 2030s.”

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