NASA robot reaches one year of operation on Mars.

The NASA robot completed its mission as originally planned, lasting 687 Earth days or a Martian year, and began its extended mission .

Perseverance, NASA's car-sized rover, landed in the Jezero crater on February 18, 2021, beginning a Martian year-long mission, equivalent to 687 Earth days. This mission concluded on January 6. From January 7 onwards, the six-wheeled rover will continue its extended mission on the red planet.

The Mars rover Perseverance and its Ingenuity helicopter. (Photo: NASA).

Perseverance has two main jobs :

1. The first step is to search for signs of life on the surface of the 45-kilometer-wide Jezero Depression, which once had large lakes and river deltas billions of years ago.
2. Secondly , they will collect and store dozens of soil and rock samples to bring back to Earth in the early 2030s.

According to the plan, a NASA lander and a European Space Agency (ESA) orbiter will be launched to Mars in the late 2020s. Perseverance will carry samples to the lander. The lander's rocket will then carry this valuable cargo into Martian orbit. There, the ESA spacecraft will receive the samples and transport them back to Earth.

To date, 18 of Perseverance's 38 titanium sample tubes have been filled and sealed. The robot has also dropped four tubes into the Three Forks "warehouse ," a location on Jezero. This warehouse is intended as a precaution in case Perseverance is unable to transport samples to the lander. In that case, two small helicopters accompanying the lander would fly to retrieve the sample tubes from the warehouse. Perseverance also collects samples in identical sets, one set retained in the robot, and the second dropped into the warehouse.

The sampling helicopters will be built primarily based on Ingenuity – the 1.8 kg helicopter that flew to Mars with Perseverance. Ingenuity's main job was to demonstrate the feasibility of flying on Mars, even though its atmosphere is only 1% as thin as Earth's. It quickly achieved this goal and is now serving as a scout for Perseverance in its expansion mission.

To date, Ingenuity has completed 37 flights, covering a total of 7.6 km. Meanwhile, Perseverance has traveled nearly 14 km, and this number is expected to increase significantly during its extended mission. After dropping samples at the Three Forks storage facility, the robot will travel to the summit of the ancient Jezero River delta. The climb to the summit could be completed in February. Afterward, the robot will explore the area for approximately eight months.

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