Achievements of NASA robots after a year of exploring Mars

The Perseverance robot has achieved many achievements such as drilling for the first time to sample rocks on another planet or extracting oxygen from the Martian atmosphere.

Mars robot Perseverance and small helicopter Ingenuity have set new records and milestones in a year of exploration of the red planet. The duo landed in the Jezero crater on February 18, 2021, kicking off a year filled with achievements such as the first time drilling for rock samples on another planet, the first time extracting oxygen from the Martian atmosphere, and performed the first controlled flight on another planet.

Mars Robot Perseverance with Ingenuity Helicopter.

The biggest surprise of the mission was that Ingenuity flew 19 times and operated for nearly nine months longer than expected, according to Rick Welch, deputy project manager of the Mars 2020 project. Last September, NASA decided to expand the mission. of this helicopter indefinitely as a reconnaissance plane for robots.

Other highlights include the first high-resolution panorama of the area around the crater in February 2021 and demonstrations of Perseverance's new automated navigation system in action in July 2021.

The first successful stone sample collection in September is also a remarkable milestone. Perseverance is in the process of searching for traces of ancient life in the Jezero crater, which is believed to have been a lake in ancient times. NASA plans to return these rock samples to Earth on future missions.

Perseverance drilled the first two samples from a Martian rock called Rochette on September 6 and 8, 2021.

Although the February 2021 landing was very smooth, the robot still landed a little further away from the ancient river delta of the Jezero crater than expected, according to NASA expert Ken Farley. However, NASA has taken advantage of this distance when studying rocks in areas further away from the crater. This led to one of the mission's most remarkable scientific findings.

"I expected to find lake sediment. But instead, we found volcanic rocks. These rocks are perfect for the return mission because they give the date. geology in the region," Farley said.

Farley and other scientists aren't sure, but they think the Martian wind has swept away many of the lake's sedimentary rocks over billions of years, exposing the volcanic rocks underneath. They believe Perseverance will find more sedimentary rocks near the ancient plains.

Perseverance's specimen collection, as Farley noted, overcame two challenges. First, in August 2021, the first rock the robot drilled broke so no samples could be taken. The robot then continues to work with harder rocks. By December, pieces of rock were stuck in the collection compartment. Engineers spent several weeks figuring out how to dump them out. "We overcame some obstacles and learned a lot," Farley said.