{"id":143123,"date":"2022-07-29T18:22:17","date_gmt":"2022-07-29T23:22:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2022\/07\/nasa-greenlights-two-new-mars-helicopters-and-lengthens-perseverances-resume"},"modified":"2022-07-31T11:22:16","modified_gmt":"2022-07-31T16:22:16","slug":"nasa-greenlights-two-new-mars-helicopters-and-lengthens-perseverances-resume","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2022\/07\/nasa-greenlights-two-new-mars-helicopters-and-lengthens-perseverances-resume","title":{"rendered":"NASA greenlights two new Mars helicopters and lengthens Perseverance\u2019s resume"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/nasa-greenlights-two-new-mars-helicopters-and-lengthens-perseverances-resume2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) have agreed to \u201csignificant and advantageous changes\u201d to a major part of the conceptual design for its Perseverance mission, NASA associate administrator Thomas Zurburchen states in the recent announcement.<\/p>\n<p>This <a href=\"https:\/\/mars.nasa.gov\/files\/mars2020\/Mars2020_Fact_Sheet.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer\">car-sized rover<\/a> is the newest member of NASA\u2019s robotic Mars fleet, and reached the Red Planet in February 2021 through an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.inverse.com\/science\/nasas-perseverance-rover-has-touched-down-on-mars\">unprecedented landing<\/a>. Arguably one of its most important responsibilities is the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.inverse.com\/science\/nasa-sample-from-mars\">Mars Sample Return<\/a> campaign. Perseverance\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/mars.nasa.gov\/mars2020\/spacecraft\/rover\/wheels\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer\">six wheels<\/a> leave <a href=\"https:\/\/mars.nasa.gov\/resources\/26617\/perseverance-looks-back-at-wheel-tracks\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer\">grooves on the planet\u2019s regolith<\/a> as it works towards that goal, traversing Mars\u2019 Jezero Crater <a href=\"https:\/\/www.inverse.com\/science\/perseverance-rover-successfully-collected-its-first-sample\">to gather<\/a> the telltale sedimentary proof that water \u2014 and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.inverse.com\/science\/whats-the-best-evidence-of-life-on-mars\">possibly life<\/a> \u2014 once existed there.<\/p>\n<p>In October, the space agencies will dive into the details of their redesign: rather than having Perseverance leave caches of its pebble collection on Mars\u2019 surface for another yet-to-be-built land-based spacecraft to pick up, the existing Mars rover will be the one to carry the precious parcels to their launch site. In addition, Perseverance\u2019s high-flying robotic companion, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.inverse.com\/science\/mars-ingenuity-helicopter-extends-its-mission\">Ingenuity helicopter<\/a>, has inspired the design of two future rotorcraft that would swerve over the Martian terrain to pick up other samples. This duo would be part of an existing concept, NASA\u2019s Sample Retrieval Lander.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) have agreed to \u201csignificant and advantageous changes\u201d to a major part of the conceptual design for its Perseverance mission, NASA associate administrator Thomas Zurburchen states in the recent announcement. This car-sized rover is the newest member of NASA\u2019s robotic Mars fleet, and reached the Red Planet in February [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":631,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,1514],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-143123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-robotics-ai","category-space-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/631"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143123"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143123\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":143325,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143123\/revisions\/143325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}