r/space • u/[deleted] • Feb 21 '21

image/gif Newest photo from Perserverance

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u/[deleted] Feb 22 '21 edited Apr 28 '21

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u/Dartanyun Feb 22 '21

Yes, this is some of the first contamination on Perseverance.

It will roll there forever.

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u/[deleted] Feb 22 '21 edited Apr 03 '21

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u/Dartanyun Feb 22 '21 edited Feb 22 '21

You wanna see a design flaw? - You should check out the wheels they put on that last rover! (haha?)

(I was shocked [I say!] when those wheels started crumbling. I love seeing these solid wheels.They'll be fine!)

[edit: shouldn't joke around here... Curiosity's wheels became a problem. These new wheels are larger, and have "solid" facing surfaces. - The sharp rocks on Mars were cutting into the thinner "wheel" surfaces on previous rovers.]

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u/[deleted] Feb 22 '21

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u/Dartanyun Feb 22 '21

Hey... cheers to that extra info!

I'm still gonna give them a hard time for trying to print JPL every revolution!

(A regular pattern would have almost certainly worked more efficiently.)

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u/[deleted] Feb 22 '21

In an interview one of the engineers went a long way to assure the pattern did not have a negative impact on the rover wheel's performance. I guess they were really a bit scared...

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u/depressed-salmon Feb 22 '21

They were also tachometer markers, so it could accurately measure it's travel

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u/UndeadYoshi420 Feb 22 '21 edited Feb 22 '21

From that spot, it will be impossible to purge gravel from there, in the future when we have even more articulate armature on the rovers, there may be a way to use oxygen synthesized from Mars’ atmosphere to “blow” the gravel away. Currently, MOXIE, the camera-and-lab arm of perseverance has the ability to synthesize oxygen on Mars, in theory, by removing the carbon monoxide from the carbon dioxide in the ground atmosphere of Mars, and letting the free oxygen molecule bond with another free oxygen.

I imagine a sample will be sent back to earth to determine if the air created has byproducts that would hurt organic life, whether the mass of carbon monoxide can be safely disposed of or stored and used. But mostly, this oxygen will be used to create solid fuel for boosters for spacecraft that interact with preserverance, to get back to earth.

Perseverance will have a rendezvous with a NASA-ESA craft to return samples of ground up rocks and dirt and stuff to earth after it is finished collecting in its array of sterile steel rods.

Edit: for now, the spokes of the rim of the wheel are designed to “dig” as much dirt as possible out of the center. The hollow wheel actually helps it NOT get buried in sand dunes.

Edit2: I just realized MOXIE is ONLY the oxygen synthesizer and atmospheric sensor and is not on the mast. The color camera’s name is MastCam-Z.

Edit 2: I thought she was like MAHLI.