Missions to Mars

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Putting the Platypus rover to the challenge

Monash University’s Nova Rover team takes on the world at the University Rover Challenge.

Monash University’s Nova Rover team has touched down at the Mars Desert Research station in Utah, US.

The team will pitch its Platypus rover against the best robotics that students around the world can throw against it as part of the University Rover Challenge.

Last Sunday, the 25 students landed in Salt Lake City to participate in the challenge, which runs from June 1 to 4 and features a simulated Mars environment obstacle course. That means rocks, regolith and dust will need to be overcome as robotic ingenuity attempts to complete four graded tasks.

Monash hasn’t participated in the annual event for the past two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but it has returned this month with its budget-capped ($A26,800) innovation, aimed at paving the way towards lower-cost space exploration.

The two-year lockdown was not time wasted, with the Melbourne-based students using it to test, refine and redesign their six-wheeled machine.

A 360-degree camera contributes to the Nova Rover’s autonomous navigation capability. A 3m-tall retractable antenna adds to the range of radio communications beamed back to its remote operations team. And its new robotic arm can collect samples for various onboard tests intended to sense signs of life.

The Monash team has spent the past few days reassembling and trouble-shooting the Platypus rover after its flight from Australia.

“The tests include checking that all the wires are connected properly, the radios work, that all six motors and six motor control boards function and that all the individual joints of the arm rotate,” the team posted to social media.

Monash University is the only team from the southern hemisphere that has qualified for the competition since its first attempt in 2017. It’s up against 35 other teams from a total of 11 countries, competing for rover bragging rights.

“This remote team sits in a base station, far away from the rover competition field,” the team posted. “The base station is set up with two monitors, one with camera feeds and one with a graphical user interface (GUI). The GUI allows the remote team to navigate all the information sent to them from the rover.”

Everything about the rover – from wind and air pressure to orientation and chassis temperature – is relayed to the base station. Combined with GPS positioning and live video, the rover has all it needs to undertake its tasks.

A test run on Tuesday night, Australia time, gave the team a taste of things to come: “The team woke up to ice spikes on the fence, followed by a 30 degree heat, and then it snowed!”

The Platypus’ journey doesn’t end with the Utah competition. The Monash students will then take the test vehicle to another Mars simulation environment – NASA’s rover test facilities in Florida. There Platypus will team with Gilmour Space Technologies to further test its excavation capabilities.

“Australia’s space industry is undergoing rapid growth and investment,” says Dr Chao Chen, Monash Nova Rover’s academic supervisor. “We’re proud to educate and support our students to become the next generation of engineers, scientists and technologists driving innovation in this strategically important field, with international partnerships and connections already forged through competitions such as the University Rover Challenge.”

https://cosmosmagazine.com/technology/robotics/platypus-rover/

 

Edited June 3, 2022 by CaaC (John)
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The difficulty of driving on Martian terrain proves itself once again! Our Sol 3504 drive did not complete successfully, leaving us in basically the same spot as our last plan. Thankfully, all the science we planned executed successfully: check out an interesting Dust Removal Tool result on “Omai” showing erosion-resistant veins beneath the surface and a MAHLI closeup of ChemCam’s eye where the laser comes out! My role today was MAHLI and MARDI Payload Uplink Lead, which means I wrote and delivered the MAHLI/MARDI instrument commands and spoke for both instruments’ activities after the plan was approved by the team.

While our resolute Rover Planners worked on planning a drive to get us further down the road, everyone else agreed to fill up today’s plan with even more science and instrument calibration activities. For geology-based science, ChemCam’s Sol 3503 laser target “Mahdia” was so interesting they decided to shoot the same area again but this time have Mastcam take a suite of images in 7 color filters to document the area in various light wavelengths. ChemCam is also planning to shoot their laser on a thin plate of rock sticking out just above the Mahdia target area, named “Iwokrama” after a rain forest in central Guyana. While Mastcam is documenting ChemCam’s efforts in color, it will also be taking a stereo 2x2 mosaic of nearby sand ripples, named “Poci” after the small town in Venezuela, which may help characterize Martian aeolian processes over time.

For contact science with the arm, the team decided on a single MAHLI imaging activity on a layered rock we named “Tipuru” after the village in Guyana. Due to the depth of Tipuru's layers, MAHLI will be taking images at 8 focus positions and stacking them into a single image with best focus.

For environmental science, ChemCam is planning to collect data passively while pointed at the sky for atmospheric composition characterization, Mastcam is planning images of the sun with its solar filter for atmospheric opacity measurements, and Navcam is planning an image of crater rim for atmospheric opacity and a movie of the terrain to hopefully capture Martian dust devils. The environmental team is also planning their normal REMS, RAD, and DAN activities for regular measurements of our spot in Gale Crater.

We’re also taking today as an opportunity to get plenty of instrument calibration and documentation activities logged! Mastcam is planning two identical runs of images through the solar filter while not pointing at the sun, which will return black images showing the state of the Mastcam charge-coupled devices (CCDs) to see how they’re holding up after nearly 10 years on Mars. MAHLI is planning an image of the REMS ultraviolet sensor to show how much dust has accumulated and 4 images of the sky to use for processing MAHLI images after they arrive on Earth. SAM has an electrical-baseline test (EBT) and CheMin has an empty cell analysis activity planned for continued instrument calibration.

After the planned ~22 meter drive, ECAM and Mastcam are planning their normal images of our new location. Last (but not least, especially from my perspective today) we are planning a single MARDI image of the ground including part of the left-front wheel after sunset to get diffuse illumination of the dusty ground below, like this one from Sol 3495. As of this plan we’ve driven 28 and 1/8th kilometers since landing!

https://mars.nasa.gov/msl/mission-updates/9206/sols-3505-3506-summer-science-smorgasbord/

 

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June 24, 2022

Sols 3514-3516: Drill Success!

Written by Ken Herkenhoff, Planetary Geologist at USGS Astrogeology Science Center

The MSL team is very happy today, because our first drill attempt since last November was successful! This Front Hazcam image shows the drill being extracted from the new drill hole, which is surrounded by drill tailings as expected. This is one of several times in MSL’s mission that drilling had to be re-designed to overcome an anomaly, again requiring lots of careful planning and testing using nearly identical drill hardware at JPL. Kudos to the anomaly resolution team and thanks for all the good work that enabled the capability to drill again! Drilling is required to acquire samples of rock and deliver them to the laboratory instruments SAM and CheMin inside the rover, so this is a day of celebration for the MSL science team.

But before any sample can be delivered to CheMin or SAM, we have to see the results of the drill sample portion characterization that was planned last Wednesday. These results will not be relayed to Earth in time for planning Sols 3514 through 3516, so this weekend's plan includes many remote sensing and environmental observations, including more Mastcam and Navcam images of the terrain east and west of the rover at various times of day to improve the sampling of observational geometries needed to constrain the photometric behavior of the surface materials. Such photometric observations are useful in determining the scattering properties and roughness of the rocks, soil and dust on the surface. ChemCam will also be busy, with LIBS rasters planned on each sol, of targets "Magna Brava" (local bedrock), "Rio Uraricoera" (a vein), and "Wiapri" (a dark rock). Mastcam will document the LIBS spots on each of these targets, and on the morning of Sol 3514 will acquire a 12x2 stereo mosaic extending the coverage of sedimentary structures at Marbura Hill and a multispectral observation of disturbed soil at "Kamana." That afternoon, Navcam and Mastcam will examine the properties of dust in the atmosphere and Mastcam will acquire two more stereo mosaics, of "Amacuro" and "Deepdale."

On Sol 3515, Mastcam and Navcam will measure the amount of dust in the atmosphere and Navcam will search for dust devils and clouds more extensively than usual, as additional time and power are available this weekend. Navcam will search for clouds before dawn and Mastcam will measure the amount of dust above the rover later the next morning. Navcam will search again for clouds and dust devils later that sol. The rover will wake up before dawn again on Sol 3517 to allow Navcam to search for clouds. Later than morning, Mastcam and Navcam will measure atmospheric dust content before Navcam searches for clouds one more time. REMS and DAN will also monitor the environmental conditions through the weekend plan. So MSL will be busy while we wait for news of the sample portion characterization!

https://mars.nasa.gov/msl/mission-updates/9213/sols-3514-3516-drill-success/

 

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Perseverance Mars rover damaged by pebble flung in gust, but functioning fine

It’s not Perseverance’s first run-in with an annoying rock and the rover chugs on.

Not for the first time, the Perseverance rover has fallen foul of an errant rock on Mars.

The plucky little machine’s weekend sojourn on the red planet’s surface was spoiled by a pebble, picked up by a particularly strong gust of wind, which collided with the rover.

This follows another stone mishap in January when the rover’s attempts to stow away some core samples were thwarted by “pebble-sized debris” obstructing its robotic arm.

Ironically, the recent gust-lifted pebble assault struck the rover in an instrument designed precisely for measuring wind speed and direction along with other weather phenomena. Perseverance’s weather station, called the Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyser (MEDA), contains two wind sensors among other devices to measure humidity, radiation and air temperature.

The wind sensors are roughly 30cm-long devices, encircled by six detectors which can provide accurate measurements of wind speed from any direction.

Both wind sensors are attached to foldable boom arms to keep them away from the rover itself. This is because the car-sized Perseverance actually affects wind currents when travelling through the thin Martian atmosphere.

Although one of the wind sensors was damaged, MEDA can still evaluate wind speeds, albeit with decreased sensitivity, according to MEDA’s principal investigator, José Antonio Rodriguez Manfredi.

“Right now, the sensor is diminished in its capabilities, but it still provides speed and direction magnitudes,” Rodriguez Manfredi, who is a scientist at the Spanish Astrobiology Centre in Madrid, tells Space.com. 

“The whole team is now re-tuning the retrieval procedure to get more accuracy from the undamaged detector readings.”

Rodriguez Manfredi notes that the sensors were designed with redundancy and protection in mind: “But of course, there is a limit to everything.”

Such safeguards are particularly difficult for instruments like MEDA, which are intended to be exposed to environmental conditions. But gusts as strong as the one which flung a pebble at Perseverance were not anticipated.

“Neither the predictions nor the experience we had from previous missions foresaw such strong winds, nor so much loose material of that nature,” says Rodriguez Manfredi.

It is ironic, Rodriguez Manfredi admits, that the wind sensors were damaged by “precisely by what we went looking for”.

But Perseverance perseveres.

The endearing rover continues the mission it began when it landed on the red planet’s surface on February 18, 2021.

With its helicopter buddy, Ingenuity, Perseverance is exploring an ancient river delta on the edge of the 45km-wide Jezero Crater, to learn about the crater’s formation and hopefully find signs of ancient life.

Let’s hope that it’s more smooth sailing for Perseverance from here on. But this may not be the only pebble on this very desolate beach.

https://cosmosmagazine.com/space/perseverance-rover-wind-pebble/

 

 

Edited July 5, 2022 by CaaC (John)
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New sailplanes to “fly for free” and collect data over Mars

Albatross-inspired dynamic soaring to propel NASA’s newest toys

Researchers from the University of Arizona (UArizona), US, and NASA Ames Research Centre are hopeful their design for a new lightweight, motorless sailplane will plug a gap in Martian data collection.

Laden with temperature and gas sensors and cameras for image collection, the sailplane would complement existing orbital spacecraft and land-based rovers to obtain data on Mars’s planetary boundary – the atmospheric layers between the planet’s surface and space.

“You have this really important, critical piece in this planetary boundary layer in the first few kilometres above the ground… where all the exchanges between the surface and atmosphere happen,” explains Alexandre Kling, a research scientist in NASA’s Mars Climate Modeling Center, who worked on the study.

“This is where the dust is picked up and sent into the atmosphere, where trace gases are mixed, where the modulation of large-scale winds by mountain-valley flows happen.

“We just don’t have very much data about it.”

The publication of the sailplane’s design in the journal Aerospace is the latest development in the quest for data about Mars’s planetary boundary.

It follows the landing of NASA’s tiny, two kilogram Ingenuity helicopter in Mars’s 45-kilometre wide Jezero crater last year – an event marking the debut of powered, controlled flight technology on another planet.

But reliance on solar powered motors limits Ingenuity’s flight duration to around three minutes of flight. It can fly just 12 metres above the surface. It’s because of these limitations that researchers jumped into the design of a craft that could harness the power of the Martian wind for propulsion and forgo reliance on other power sources.

“The main question is: How can you fly for free?”

The question posed by the study’s first author Adrien Bouskela, an aerospace engineering doctoral student from UArizona’s Micro Air Vehicles Laboratory, is the motivation for the sailplane’s design.  

“How can you use the wind that’s there [and] the thermal dynamics that are there, to avoid using solar panels and relying on batteries that need to be recharged?”

Fortunately, Bouskela and colleagues didn’t need an out-of-this-world solution to solve the problem.

Using dynamic soaring, the sailplane utilises increases in horizontal wind speed with gaining altitude to continue flying long distances. It’s the same process albatrosses use to fly long distances without flapping their wings and expending crucial energy.

After lifting themselves up into fast, high-altitude air, albatrosses then turn their bodies to descend rapidly into regions of slower, low-altitude air. With the force of gravity providing downward acceleration, the albatross uses this momentum to slingshot itself back to higher altitudes.

Continuously repeating this process enables albatross and other seabird species to cover thousands of kilometres of ocean, flap-free.

It’s the inspiration for the sailplane’s own propulsion system, enabling it to cover the canyons and volcanoes dotted across the red planet currently inaccessible to Mars rovers.

From flying machine to weather station

While the sailplane’s primary task is for aerial data collection, its design also provides for end-of-mission or fault-triggered landing. After landing on the red surface – whether from a fault or after completing its mission – the grounded sailplane will continue recording atmospheric data for transmission to orbiting spacecraft.

In effect, the craft provides a two-in-one data collection solution.

“If we run out of flight energy, or if our inertial sensors suddenly fail for whatever reason, we expect to then keep doing science,” says Bouskela. “From the planetary science perspective, the mission continues.”

Earth testing awaits sailplane team

With a view to using the sailplane on larger Martian missions, the researchers’ focus now moves to deployment and testing.

While the design currently allows the craft to be packaged into miniature satellites no larger than a phone book, the UArizona team needs to decide whether the sailplane will unfold from the package or inflate and rigidise to full size, and if balloons or blimp drops will be involved in deployment.

The researchers are preparing to test experimental sailplanes at 15,000 feet (around 4570m) above the Earth’s surface, where atmospheric conditions are most like those the craft will encounter on Mars.

https://cosmosmagazine.com/space/new-sailplanes-set-for-mars/

 

 

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Machine learning identifies the origin of the most famous Martian meteorite to land on Earth

The rock was ejected when an asteroid struck Mars millions of years ago.

Somewhere between five and ten million years ago, an asteroid crashed into Mars, creating a massive crater. Like getting caught in the crossfire of a friend’s drama, a piece of detritus from that explosive impact made its way all the way to Earth.

Found in northern Africa in 2011, meteorite NWA 7034 dubbed “Black Beauty”, weighs 320g, and is the oldest and most famous Martian meteorite. New research, led by Perth’s Curtin University, has pinpointed Black Beauty’s origin on Mars’s surface and the study has involved collaborators from France, Ivory Coast and the US.

The findings of the multidisciplinary study were published in a paper appearing in Nature Communications.

Making use of the Pawsey Supercomputer in Perth, the researchers have been able to identify the crater that resulted in the ejection of the meteor that landed in the western Sahara.

The crater was named after the Pilbara city of Karratha, which is located more than 1500km north of the Western Australian capital and is home to the one of the oldest terrestrial rocks. The team hopes that NASA will prioritise the area around the Karratha Crater for future Mars missions.

Black Beauty and paired stones came from Martian rocks which were formed when the crusts of both Mars and Earth were still young – 4.5 billion years ago. The meteorite can, therefore, be used to compare the early formation of the two planets.

“Finding the region where the Black Beauty meteorite originates is critical because it contains the oldest Martian fragments ever found, aged at 4.48 billion years old, and it shows similarities between Mars’ very old crust, aged about 4.53 billion years old, and today’s Earth continents,” says lead author Dr Anthony Lagain from Curtin’s Space Science and Technology Centre.

“The region we identify as being the source of this unique Martian meteorite sample constitutes a true window into the earliest environment of the planets, including the Earth, which our planet lost because of plate tectonics and erosion.”

Analysing thousands of high-resolution images of the red planet taken from a range of Mars missions, the supercomputer identified about 90 million impact craters. One of the fastest in the southern hemisphere, the Pawsey supercomputer’s machine learning algorithm identified the Karratha Crater as Black Beauty’s source.

https://cosmosmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Mars-Crater-Orbit-Loop-logo.mp4

Black Beauty is the only Martian sample on Earth that is brecciated. Brecciation refers to angular fragments of multiple rock types cemented together. All other Martian meteorites contain single rock types.

“For the first time, we know the geological context of the only brecciated Martian sample available on Earth, 10 years before the NASA’s Mars Sample Return mission is set to send back samples collected by the Perseverance rover currently exploring the Jezero crater,” says Lagain.

Such technology will also be used to identify the source of other Martian meteorites and identify billions of impact craters on the surface of Mercury and the Moon. More than 300 Martian meteorites have been found on Earth to date.

Co-author Professor Gretchen Benedix, also from Curtin’s Space Science and Technology Centre, says the research has opened up the possibility of creating the most comprehensive understanding of Mars’s geological history.

“We are also adapting the algorithm that was used to pinpoint Black Beauty’s point of ejection from Mars to unlock other secrets from the Moon and Mercury,” Benedix says. “This will help to unravel their geological history and answer burning questions that will help future investigations of the Solar System, such as the Artemis program to send humans on the Moon by the end of the decade, or the BepiColombo mission in orbit around Mercury in 2025.”

https://cosmosmagazine.com/space/martian-meteorite-machine-learning/

 

 

Edited July 17, 2022 by CaaC (John)
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More helicopters look set to fly on Mars

The US and Europe are remodelling their plans to bring rock samples back from Mars, for study in Earth laboratories.

They hope to simplify the process, cut risk and cost using helicopters instead of a British-built "fetch rover".

Airbus UK engineers, who have been developing the concept for years, have been expressing disappointment, at the Farnborough International Airshow 2022.

Also at the Hampshire show, Italian aerospace giant Leonardo signed a €55m (£46m) deal for key mission hardware.

Its trade stand exhibited an actual-size model of a robotic arm - complete with "shoulder", "elbow" and "wrist" - it will now deliver to US space agency Nasa by November 2025.

FULL REPORT

 

Edited July 21, 2022 by CaaC (John)
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Predicting your health on Mars with a mathematical model

Billionaires might fare less well than trained astronauts.

How likely are you to survive a journey to Mars? A team of Australian researchers has made a model which can predict and track people’s health as they leave the atmosphere – whether they’re up there for an hour-long joyride, or a years-long trip to the Red Planet.

“Obviously, there’s not a lot of data on how the human body responds in space. It’s sort of hard to just fly someone to Mars to see what happens,” says model developer Dr Lex van Loon, a research fellow at the Australian National University’s medical school.

van Loon and colleagues have countered the lack of real test flights, by taking existing health models, and tweaking them for space flight.

“We used them for years in clinical settings. These models pretty much describe your cardiopulmonary system,” explains van Loon.

“They state how blood flows from your heart to your arteries, through your organs and back to the heart.”

These cardiopulmonary models have been useful for understanding and treating patients on Earth.

“Can we use mathematical models that have been around for years, and apply them to space environments?” asks van Loon. The answer to that question appears to be yes.

“You need to find parameters that describe your heart in space, or your blood vessels in space. The good thing is that NASA has lots of data on astronauts as they’re going to space,” says van Loon.

“From all that data, you can adjust the parameters of those physiological models in order to simulate an astronaut.

“And on top of that, you can apply different scenarios. You can put less gravity or more gravity and see how the model responds to that.”

The researchers’ model works for astronauts – but they’re interested in applying it to people without an astronaut’s physique.

ANU researchers Dr Lex van Loon and Dr Emma Tucker. Credit: Tracey Nearmy/ANU

“We’re now able to predict what happens to a well-trained, healthy astronaut, but with the rise of Space X and Virgin Galactic space travel is not only limited to the really well-trained, healthy people. We’re currently working on using the models on people with some pathologies – so heart failure, for instance, or respiratory constraints – and see if they’re fit enough to go into space.”

While they can figure out what the side effects may be, van Loon thinks it’s unlikely that rich folk with average (or bad) health will be headed to Mars soon. “I would not encourage them to go to Mars,” he says.

“It’s less relevant to do the Mars simulation. But in the really short-term spaceflights, there are still some significant changes to your cardiovascular system. And we do know what those changes are. You can apply them to unhealthy persons as well.”

The model can also be used to track health in space. This becomes increasingly important the further you travel from Earth. Depending on where the planets are positioned, there could be a 20-minute communication delay between Earth and Mars.

“It’s not only predicting if someone is fit to fly, but you could also use it to monitor their health while they’re in space,” says van Loon.

“For instance, if you go to Mars, you can develop all sorts of abnormalities. It’s been reported that even in well trained, healthy astronauts, they do get blood clots, and their cardiac function will decrease.

“If you can take those measurements, put them in my model and see, okay, do I have to return this guy? Can he go on? Do we need some counter measurements? It’s also sort of a testing environment where you can see what you need to do.”

A paper describing their research is published in npj Microgravity

https://cosmosmagazine.com/space/mars-travel-mathematical-model/

 

Edited August 17, 2022 by CaaC (John)
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BLOG | August 19, 2022

Perseverance Soon Heads to 'Enchanted Lake'
Written by Steven Lee, Perseverance Deputy Project Manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory

After an extended stay at “Wildcat Ridge,” the Perseverance team is preparing to head southwest to another sedimentary outcrop on the Jezero Crater delta called Enchanted Lake. This site has enchanted our science team since we first visited it back April. 

The drive to “Enchanted Lake” is expected to begin in the next few days with arrival in early September.

Before beginning the drive, we’ll continue efforts to assess the two small, string-like pieces of foreign object debris (FOD) detected on one of the rover’s coring bits. The rover team feels comfortable moving forward due to progress made in its FOD investigation. Since first identified Aug. 5 in imagery of the rover’s sample collection system after a 12th rock core sample was taken, the FOD has been the focus of several methodical diagnostic activities in an attempt to better understand the nature of the debris. 

We’ve commanded the rover to move, rotate, or vibrate components we think could harbor FOD. And we’ve obtained multiple sets of images of the components from different angles and in different lighting conditions from rover cameras: Mastcam-Z, Navcam, Hazcam, Supercam, and even the WATSON (Wide Angle Topographic Sensor for Operations and eNgineering) camera located on the rover’s turret. Finally, a thorough review of recent coring and bit-exchange activities confirm that they all executed nominally with no indication of interference from the FOD.

Analysis of the latest round of imaging, downlinked earlier today, indicates that while the two small pieces remain visible in the upper part of the drill chuck, no new FOD has been observed. In addition, imagery taken of the ground beneath the robotic arm and turret, as well as the rover deck, also showed no new FOD.

Our present status reminds me of another FOD issue we encountered in January of this year. Back then, it was small pebbles in the bit carousel. Even though we knew the carousel was robust and built to operate in a dirty environment, we took our time to better understand the situation before moving on. I think the same will hold here. Our drill is also robust and designed for dirty environments. That, combined with the fact that we have detected no new debris, gives us confidence that we can begin to move forward (literally as well as figuratively) with our Jezero Delta science investigation while continuing to do all we can to better understand the origin of the debris.

Next stop, Enchanted Lake!

https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/mission/status/397/perseverance-soon-heads-to-enchanted-lake/

 

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10 Years Since Landing, NASA's Curiosity Mars Rover Still Has Drive

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Despite signs of wear, the intrepid spacecraft is about to start an exciting new chapter of its mission as it climbs a Martian mountain.

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Ten years ago today, a jetpack lowered NASA’s Curiosity rover onto the Red Planet, beginning the SUV-size explorer’s pursuit of evidence that, billions of years ago, Mars had the conditions needed to support microscopic life.

Since then, Curiosity has driven nearly 18 miles (29 kilometers) and ascended 2,050 feet (625 meters) as it explores Gale Crater and the foothills of Mount Sharp within it. The rover has analyzed 41 rock and soil samples, relying on a suite of science instruments to learn what they reveal about Earth’s rocky sibling. And it’s pushed a team of engineers to devise ways to minimize wear and tear and keep the rover rolling: In fact, Curiosity’s mission was recently extended for another three years, allowing it to continue among NASA’s fleet of important astrobiological missions.

A Bounty of Science

It’s been a busy decade. Curiosity has studied the Red Planet’s skies, capturing images of shining clouds and drifting moons. The rover’s radiation sensor lets scientists measure the amount of high-energy radiation future astronauts would be exposed to on the Martian surface, helping NASA figure out how to keep them safe.

But most important, Curiosity has determined that liquid water as well as the chemical building blocks and nutrients needed for supporting life were present for at least tens of millions of years in Gale Crater. The crater once held a lake, the size of which waxed and waned over time. Each layer higher up on Mount Sharp serves as a record of a more recent era of Mars’ environment.

Now, the intrepid rover is driving through a canyon that marks the transition to a new region, one thought to have formed as water was drying out, leaving behind salty minerals called sulfates.

“We’re seeing evidence of dramatic changes in the ancient Martian climate,” said Ashwin Vasavada, Curiosity’s project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “The question now is whether the habitable conditions that Curiosity has found up to now persisted through these changes. Did they disappear, never to return, or did they come and go over millions of years?”

Curiosity has made striking progress up the mountain. Back in 2015, the team captured a “postcard” image of distant buttes. A mere speck within that image is a Curiosity-size boulder nicknamed “Ilha Novo Destino” – and, nearly seven years later, the rover trundled by it last month on the way to the sulfate-bearing region.

The team plans to spend the next few years exploring the sulfate-rich area. Within it, they have targets in mind like the Gediz Vallis channel, which may have formed during a flood late in Mount Sharp’s history, and large cemented fractures that show the effects of groundwater higher up the mountain.

How to Keep a Rover on a Roll

What’s Curiosity’s secret to maintaining an active lifestyle at the ripe old age of 10? A team of hundreds of dedicated engineers, of course, working both in person at JPL and remotely from home.

They catalog each and every crack in the wheels, test every line of computer code before it’s beamed into space, and drill into endless rock samples in JPL’s Mars Yard, ensuring Curiosity can safely do the same.

“As soon as you land on Mars, everything you do is based on the fact that there’s no one around to repair it for 100 million miles,” said Andy Mishkin, Curiosity’s acting project manager at JPL. “It’s all about making intelligent use of what’s already on your rover.”

Curiosity’s robotic drilling process, for example, has been reinvented multiple times since landing. At one point, the drill was offline for more than a year as engineers redesigned its use to be more like a handheld drill. More recently, a set of braking mechanisms that allow the robotic arm to move or stay in place stopped working. Although the arm has been operating as usual since engineers engaged a set of spares, the team has also learned to drill more gently to preserve the new brakes.

To minimize damage to the wheels, engineers keep an eye out for treacherous spots like the knife-edged “gator-back” terrain they recently discovered, and they developed a traction-control algorithm to help as well.

The team has taken a similar approach to managing the rover’s slowly diminishing power. Curiosity relies on a long-lived nuclear-powered battery rather than solar panels to keep on rolling. As the plutonium pellets in the battery decay, they generate heat that the rover converts into power. Because of the pellets’ gradual decay, the rover can’t do quite as much in a day as it did during its first year.

Mishkin said the team is continuing to budget how much energy the rover uses each day, and has figured out which activities can be done in parallel to optimize the energy available to the rover. “Curiosity is definitely doing more multitasking where it’s safe to do so,” Mishkin added.

Through careful planning and engineering hacks, the team has every expectation the plucky rover still has years of exploring to ahead of it.

More About the Mission

JPL, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, built Curiosity for NASA and leads the mission on behalf of the agency’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

For more about Curiosity, visit:
http://mars.nasa.gov/msl and https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/index.html

 

[CaaC (John)+]

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NASA’s Perseverance rover has found rocks which might hold the key to understanding Mars’ geological history.

These are the first datable Mars rock samples.

These are the first datable Mars rock samples so they will provide a landmark in geological time for mapping the history, evolution, and changing climate of the red planet.

The olivine cumulate is an igneous rock (formed when molten magma cools and crystallises) which was found below the sedimentary layer of the Jezero Crater where Perseverance has been conducting its surveys of Mars since it landed on February 18 last year.

Researchers from the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) are part of the team which is analysing the samples and published the discovery in Science.

Like a geological “Rosetta Stone,” the samples will be dated once returned to Earth and help place other geological and climatic events into context. The researchers believe the samples will give a better understanding of warmer and wetter periods in Mars’ past and will be important for any potential past life the mission may find.

“It was a surprise that we didn’t find sedimentary rocks on the crater floor but also ideal because finding a datable igneous sample was one of the main mission goals,” says co-author Dr David Flannery, QUT researcher and long-term planner for the Perseverance mission.

“Ancient igneous rocks will allow us to date a several billion-year-old rock with very high precision. This will provide important timing and duration constraints on the history of Jezero crater and its surrounding region.

“So effectively, we landed on exactly the thing we needed to help us with one of our other main goals, which is to find evidence of past life. If we find that this lake was a habitable environment, for example, we will have an age constraint on when it was habitable.”

On Earth, igneous rocks can react with water to produce diverse habitats for microbial life.

Early signs from Perseverance show rocks on the floor of the 45-kilometre wide Jezero crater appear to share the same characteristics and may potentially record biosignatures of ancient ecosystems.

The olivine sample was identified by the QUT-developed Planetary Instrument for X-ray Lithochemistry (PIXL) tool aboard the Perseverance rover. PIXL was able to determine the composition and mineralogy, including diffraction peaks – changes in the atomic structure of the rock.

Once data was collected by the car-sized rover, it was sent back to Earth and analysed by Flannery’s team at QUT.

“Our working hypothesis was that we were at the bottom of a lake because sedimentary features viewed from orbit suggested the crater was under water at some point,” says Flannery. “Now we know we’re looking at olivine, which on Earth, would be pushed towards the surface from the mantle through tectonic processes – volcanos and lava flows.”

“This discovery is hugely important because these types of rocks can be dated with radiometric techniques, the same as we use on Earth to date very old rocks.”

In a second study published in Science, researchers explain how the discovery inside the crater helped solve a long-standing mystery of an olivine-rich outcrop spanning 70,000 square kilometres from the edge of Jezero into the surrounding region.

The olivine sample resembles Martian meteorites found on Earth and were found after Perseverance created an abrasion patch by grinding away surface material.

The olivine has a large crystal size and uniform compositionand it is believed it formed in a very slow cooling environment. The researchers theorise that magma in Jezero did not erupt to the surface but formed underground before being exposed over time by erosion.

Flannery says that in the distant past Mars may have been habitable.

“Mars is another example of how things can pan out, and things did pan out quite differently. It sort of died off geologically. It doesn’t have plate tectonics anymore, for example. And climate change has led to the cold and dry conditions that we have on the surface today.

“Being able to date these old rocks on Mars allows us to unravel its history. Studying Mars helps us put the Earth in context and gives us a mirror to better understand how our planet might be special.”

After being thwarted in January by an errant rock and hit by a wind-blown pebble in July, the discovery delighted supporters of the plucky rover which has persevered through trials and tribulation to deliver valuable scientific data.

With planned launch dates for the Earth Return Orbiter and Sample Retrieval Lander in 2027 and 2028, respectively, the samples are expected to arrive on Earth in 2033.

https://cosmosmagazine.com/space/perseverance-mars-rock-sample-history/

 

[CaaC (John)+]

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Which craters spat out Martian meteorites?

Using AI to trace the origins of Mars rocks.

Where do Martian meteorites come from? This seems like a tautological question, but in order to learn more about the geology of Mars, it’s important to find out where on the red planet these rocks originated before they ended up on Earth.

“The only rocks we get from Mars are Martian meteorites,” says Dr Anthony Lagain, a researcher at Curtin University’s Space Science and Technology Centre.

There aren’t many of these Martian rocks on Earth, making it difficult to draw conclusions about the geology of the planet in the same way we can study Earth.

“It’s very important to understand: what is the context of these rocks?” says Lagain. “Where are they coming from?”

Lagain and colleagues have used a supercomputer and an algorithm they developed to learn more about these meteorites. In doing so, the researchers have been able to say that a group of meteorites likely began in a couple of craters in Mars’ Tharsis region, before their ejection 1.1 million years ago.

A paper describing their research is published in Nature Communications.

The researchers figured out the origin of these rocks by looking at craters on the Martian surface.

“When the rocks are being ejected from the surface, they are being ejected by an impact,” explains Lagain.

In order to make it to Earth, these impacts need to have come at an angle and force that launches rocks off the planet. Such impacts should leave behind craters of certain shapes and sizes. Secondary craters, which form from matter ejected by a larger crater, can yield a lot of information here.

Unfortunately, secondary craters are very small, and there are millions of them on Mars, so it would take a lifetime to manually find the meteorite-generating craters.

This is why the researchers used an AI to examine the Martian surface.

“The idea is to try to detect all of these small secondary craters in order to identify … larger craters that are responsible for the ejection of Martian meteorites,” says Lagain.

The researchers did this by feeding a convolutional neural network (a type of machine learning algorithm) images of craters, where the craters had been marked out.

“Then you apply it on very high-resolution imagery, and what it will give you is a list of the craters,” says Lagain.

The algorithm was able to put together a database of 90 million impact craters on the Martian surface.

This could then be used to determine the origin of shergottites, one of the Martian meteorite groups that have been found on the Earth’s surface. The researchers traced these meteorites to the Tooting and 09-000015 craters, both in the Tharsis region of the red planet.

This has interesting implications for the geology of Mars.

“This finding implies that volcanic eruptions occurred in this region 300 million years ago, which is very recent at a geological time scale,” says Professor Gretchen Benedix, also from Curtin.

“It also provides new insights on the structure of the planet, beneath this volcanic province.”

Lagain says that the algorithm, which was co-developed with CSIRO and Curtin computer science researchers, can now also be used on other planetary bodies, as well as in identifying the origins of other Martian meteorite groups.

The researchers are planning to examine the surface of the Moon and Mercury next.

The algorithm can also “be applied to Earth to assist with managing agriculture, the environment and even, potentially, natural disasters such as fires or floods”, according to Lagain.

https://cosmosmagazine.com/space/astronomy/martian-meteorites-origin-craters-ai/

 

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Mars rover’s MOXIE oxygen generator one step closer to supporting human life on the Red Planet

The small instrument, stored on NASA's Perseverance rover, can produce oxygen at the same rate as a tree on Earth.

Situated aboard the Mars Perseverance rover, MOXIE has been successfully making oxygen from the Red Planet’s carbon dioxide-rich atmosphere since it arrived in February 2021.

The new report, published in the journal Science Advances, reveals how MOXIE (Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment), which is about the size of a car battery, makes oxygen like a tree, by inhaling carbon dioxide from the Martian atmosphere and exhaling oxygen.

According to the study, MOXIE proved it could produce oxygen over seven experimental runs by the end of 2021 – under a range of atmospheric conditions – during the day and night, and during different Martian seasons. Indeed, MOXIE reached its target of oxygen production, with a rate of 6g of oxygen per hour – about the same rate as a tree on Earth.

It is hoped that a scaled-up version of MOXIE could operate on Mars in the future, ahead of a human mission, to produce oxygen at a rate that is equivalent to several hundred trees. This would, in turn, generate enough oxygen to sustain visiting astronauts and fuel a returning rocket back to Earth.

“We have learned a tremendous amount that will inform future systems at a larger scale,” said Michael Hecht, principal investigator of the MOXIE mission at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Haystack Observatory.

MOXIE’s oxygen production on Mars also represents the first demonstration of ‘in situ resource utilisation’, which involves the harvesting and use of a planet’s raw materials. In this case it’s carbon dioxide on Mars – to make resources (such as oxygen) that would otherwise have to be transported from Earth (where our oxygen level is 21 per cent).

To put this in context, carbon dioxide makes up around 96 per cent of the gas in the Martian atmosphere, compared to 0.13 per cent oxygen.

“This is the first demonstration of actually using resources on the surface of another planetary body and transforming them chemically into something that would be useful for a human mission,” said MOXIE deputy principal investigator Jeffrey Hoffman. “It’s historic in that sense.”

Due to having to fit onboard the Perseverance rover, the current version of MOXIE is understandably small. It is built to run for short periods, starting up and shutting down with each run.

A full-scale oxygen factory on the Red Planet would require much larger units that would ideally need to run continuously.

To convert the Martian atmosphere into pure oxygen, MOXIE draws the air in through a filter that cleans it of contaminants. Next, the air is compressed and heated to 800°C and sent through a Solid Oxide Electrolyzer (SOXE), an instrument that electrochemically splits the carbon dioxide-rich air into oxygen ions and carbon monoxide.

“The only thing we have not demonstrated is running at dawn or dusk, when the temperature is changing substantially,” said Hecht. “We do have an ace up our sleeve that will let us do that, and once we test that in the lab, we can reach that last milestone to show we can really run any time.”

Looking ahead, the researchers plan to push MOXIE’s capacity, and increase its production, in the Martian spring when atmospheric density and CO2 levels are high. They will also monitor the instrument for signs of wear and tear.

If MOXIE can operate successfully, despite repeatedly turning on and off, it would lay the groundwork for a full-scale system. This would need to be designed to run continuously, and would need to run for thousands of hours to support a future human mission.

“To support a human mission to Mars, we have to bring a lot of stuff from Earth, like computers, spacesuits and habitats,” said Hoffman. “But dumb old oxygen? If you can make it there, go for it – you’re way ahead of the game.”

https://www.sciencefocus.com/news/mars-rovers-moxie-oxygen-generator-one-step-closer-to-supporting-human-life-on-the-red-planet/

 

 

 

Edited September 8, 2022 by CaaC (John)
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September 15, 2022

NASA's Perseverance Rover Investigates Geologically Rich Mars Terrain

The latest findings provide greater detail on a region of the Red Planet that has a watery past and is yielding promising samples for the NASA-ESA Mars Sample Return campaign.

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NASA’s Perseverance rover is well into its second science campaign, collecting rock-core samples from features within an area long considered by scientists to be a top prospect for finding signs of ancient microbial life on Mars. The rover has collected four samples from an ancient river delta in the Red Planet’s Jezero Crater since July 7, bringing the total count of scientifically compelling rock samples to 12.

“We picked the Jezero Crater for Perseverance to explore because we thought it had the best chance of providing scientifically excellent samples – and now we know we sent the rover to the right location,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA’s associate administrator for science in Washington. “These first two science campaigns have yielded an amazing diversity of samples to bring back to Earth by the Mars Sample Return campaign.”

Twenty-eight miles (45 kilometers) wide, Jezero Crater hosts a delta – an ancient fan-shaped feature that formed about 3.5 billion years ago at the convergence of a Martian river and a lake. Perseverance is currently investigating the delta’s sedimentary rocks, formed when particles of various sizes settled in the once-watery environment. During its first science campaign, the rover explored the crater’s floor, finding igneous rock, which forms deep underground from magma or during volcanic activity at the surface.

“The delta, with its diverse sedimentary rocks, contrasts beautifully with the igneous rocks – formed from crystallization of magma – discovered on the crater floor,” said Perseverance project scientist Ken Farley of Caltech in Pasadena, California. “This juxtaposition provides us with a rich understanding of the geologic history after the crater formed and a diverse sample suite. For example, we found a sandstone that carries grains and rock fragments created far from Jezero Crater – and a mudstone that includes intriguing organic compounds.”

“Wildcat Ridge” is the name given to a rock about 3 feet (1 meter) wide that likely formed billions of years ago as mud and fine sand settled in an evaporating saltwater lake. On July 20, the rover abraded some of the surface of Wildcat Ridge so it could analyze the area with the instrument called Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence for Organics & Chemicals, or SHERLOC.

SHERLOC’s analysis indicates the samples feature a class of organic molecules that are spatially correlated with those of sulfate minerals. Sulfate minerals found in layers of sedimentary rock can yield significant information about the aqueous environments in which they formed.

What Is Organic Matter?

Organic molecules consist of a wide variety of compounds made primarily of carbon and usually include hydrogen and oxygen atoms. They can also contain other elements, such as nitrogen, phosphorus, and sulfur. While there are chemical processes that produce these molecules that don’t require life, some of these compounds are the chemical building blocks of life. The presence of these specific molecules is considered to be a potential biosignature – a substance or structure that could be evidence of past life but may also have been produced without the presence of life.

In 2013, NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover found evidence of organic matter in rock-powder samples, and Perseverance has detected organics in Jezero Crater before. But unlike that previous discovery, this latest detection was made in an area where, in the distant past, sediment and salts were deposited into a lake under conditions in which life could potentially have existed. In its analysis of Wildcat Ridge, the SHERLOC instrument registered the most abundant organic detections on the mission to date.

“In the distant past, the sand, mud, and salts that now make up the Wildcat Ridge sample were deposited under conditions where life could potentially have thrived,” said Farley. “The fact the organic matter was found in such a sedimentary rock – known for preserving fossils of ancient life here on Earth – is important. However, as capable as our instruments aboard Perseverance are, further conclusions regarding what is contained in the Wildcat Ridge sample will have to wait until it’s returned to Earth for in-depth study as part of the agency’s Mars Sample Return campaign.”

The first step in the NASA-ESA (European Space Agency) Mars Sample Return campaign began when Perseverance cored its first rock sample in September 2021. Along with its rock-core samples, the rover has collected one atmospheric sample and two witness tubes, all of which are stored in the rover’s belly.

The geologic diversity of the samples already carried in the rover is so good that the rover team is looking into depositing select tubes near the base of the delta in about two months. After depositing the cache, the rover will continue its delta explorations.

“I’ve studied Martian habitability and geology for much of my career and know first-hand the incredible scientific value of returning a carefully collected set of Mars rocks to Earth,” said Laurie Leshin, director of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “That we are weeks from deploying Perseverance’s fascinating samples and mere years from bringing them to Earth so scientists can study them in exquisite detail is truly phenomenal. We will learn so much.”

More About the Mission

A key objective for Perseverance’s mission on Mars is astrobiology, including caching samples that may contain signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will characterize the planet’s geology and past climate, pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet, and be the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith.

Subsequent NASA missions, in cooperation with ESA, would send spacecraft to Mars to collect these sealed samples from the surface and return them to Earth for in-depth analysis.

The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission is part of NASA’s Moon to Mars exploration approach, which includes Artemis missions to the Moon that will help prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet.

JPL, which is managed for NASA by Caltech, built and manages operations of the Perseverance rover.

https://mars.nasa.gov/news/9261/nasas-perseverance-rover-investigates-geologically-rich-mars-terrain/

 

Edited September 17, 2022 by CaaC (John)
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If there's one thing I could choose to be able to witness in my lifetime, it's finding evidence of life outside of Earth. 

[CaaC (John)+]

2 minutes ago, nudge said:

If there's one thing I could choose to be able to witness in my lifetime, it's finding evidence of life outside of Earth. 

Looking at that video this frame did my head in, that must have been sitting like that for ages and maybe in a 100 years time it might fall off. 

[CaaC (John)+]

@nudge, the landscape on Mars and those rocks billions of years old, some of the boulders look like pieces of shale, it made me look at the 3 pieces of shale I have from the 12/14th century old Wick Castle I found when I worked up there in 2000, they look similar to me but I guess I am only dreaming...sigh 

Wick Castle Shales/Rock

Wick Castle

Mars Landscape

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Mars: meteorite impacts provide InSight into planet’s interior

Acoustic and seismic waves from meteorite impacts are detected by NASA’s Mars InSight lander

Scientists have for the first time been able to find impact sites of incoming Martian meteorites using their sound and seismic waves, which might lead to greater understanding of the makeup of the planet they are headed for.

NASA’s InSight Mars Lander has been studying the red planet’s interior, from its surface, since November 26, 2018. Short for ‘Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport’, InSight has been using sensitive instruments to detect seismic waves, heat flow and accurate measurements of the shape and size of the planet – or, as NASA describes it, “the planet’s pulse, circulation and reflexes.”

Now, with the help of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), which has been circling around Mars for the past 16 and a half years, researchers have been able to use data on waves travelling through the air and interior of the planet to estimate and confirm the location of an impact site of four incoming meteorites.

When energy travels through solids and gasses (such as the interior of planets or through air), it does so in the form of waves. When the energy waves encounter a new material – a new composition, pressure or temperature – some energy bounces off the interface, while some energy travels through into the new material, but with a different speed and at a different angle. This results in waves from an impact arriving at a detector at different times and from different directions.

A collaboration of researchers from Curtin University in Australia and the Université de Toulouse in France have analysed InSight lander seismometer data from 4 meteorite impacts and used the different arrival times of the wave fronts from each impact to estimate the location of the impact. They then compared this estimate with images from the MRO and were able to confirm crater impact sites – a first for planetary seismology.

Using this technique, suggest the researchers, will enable planetary scientists to understand more about how impacts shape the surface of planets and deliver gasses to the planet over time. Knowing the size of the craters and the energy of the waves created, also provides information on the relationship between size of the colliding body and the overall impact on the surface in addition to providing valuable insight into the composition and properties of the interior of Mars.

Comparing these results with previous seismic data from the Moon suggests this technique could be applied to other planets to help scientists understand more about their interiors and characteristics.

https://cosmosmagazine.com/space/mars-meteorite-impacts-insight-interior/

 

Edited September 19, 2022 by CaaC (John)
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MISSION UPDATES | September 28, 2022

Sols 3607-3608: Making a Pivot

Written by Alex Innanen, Atmospheric Scientist at York University

Whenever working on Mars throws up a complication, Curiosity’s team has to make a pivot. As the past couple bloggers have mentioned, we’ve been in a bit of a precarious spot, and can’t do any direct contact science or drill. The small drive in the last plan didn’t quite get us where we wanted to go, so we’re still not able to drill.

The team quickly pivoted into other science looking at some nearby and more distant targets. On the first sol of the plan, ChemCam is going to do LIBS on a nearby block, ‘Sophia Point,’ along with Mastcam. Mastcam and ChemCam are also continuing to document the distant marker band. Later in the sol MAHLI is getting up close with two bedrock targets – ‘Esperito Santo’ and the dusty ‘El Pao de la Fortuna.’

The next sol has a ChemCam LIBS on ‘Juventina’, which we possible scuffed while driving, followed up by Mastcam. ChemCam and Mastcam are also imaging the slightly more distant ‘Kabrito Island,’ a dark, nodular block. After all this we’re going to do a small bump to try to get into a location where we can hopefully drill and do contact science, and finishing up the sol with a MARDI twilight image.

Even through changes to the plan, the environment is always there around us to check up on. We’re still well in the dusty season in Gale, and ENV is keeping an eye on the changing atmosphere. One of these observations is called a tau, which is a measurement of optical depth, or how “thick” the atmosphere is with aerosols such as dust. Another way we look at the amount of “stuff” in the atmosphere is with the line of sight, which shows us how far we see towards the crater rim. Unfortunately, our view of it can get obscured by the big hills we’ve been driving through. Luckily for us, there’s a small gap between two hills where we can see a sliver of crater rim!

We also have two dust devil observations: a survey and a movie. The survey looks all the way around the rover to see where we might spot dust devils, which can help us decide where to point for the movie. Rounding out the environmental observations is a suprahorizon cloud movie. Even though it’s not the cloudy season, we still like to keep an eye on the sky for occasional clouds drifting past. An APXS atmospheric is also planned, to look at seasonal argon changes.

https://mars.nasa.gov/msl/mission-updates/9270/sols-3607-3608-making-a-pivot/

 

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Early Mars may have been home to methane-producing microbes which caused climate cooling

Four billion years ago, Mars was likely wet and warm.

Mars may have been home to methane-producing microbial life billions of years ago, according to computer simulations of early Martian geology.

While it has long been suggested that Mars could have supported simple organisms in its younger days, the viability of this hypothesis has never been quantified, say the French researchers who developed the simulations. Until now.

Their research is published in Nature Astronomy.

While the solar system was still quite young, billions of years ago, Mars was being bombarded by a huge number of meteorites and asteroids. There is also evidence to suggest that the Martian surface at least periodically supported liquid water.

This early period in Mars’s geological history is known as the Noachian after the ancient patriarch, Noah.  A precise age for the Noachian is unknown, but it probably spanned 4.1 billion to 3.7 billion years ago. It is roughly equivalent, geologically, to Earth’s Hadean 4.6-4 billion years ago.

“During the Noachian, Mars’ crust may have provided a favourable environment for microbial life,” the authors of the recent study write. They add that the top layer of Mars’s surface would have made a good home for early life, sheltering them from ultraviolet and cosmic radiation.

•  Would extraterrestrial life even be life as we know it?

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Noachian Mars would have been a suitable habitat for hydrogenotrophic methanogens – simple microbial organisms that consumed hydrogen and carbon dioxide , and produced methane as waste. On Earth, hydrogenic methanogenesis was among the earliest metabolisms to emerge.

The scientists used a state-of-the-art model to see the effect of methanogenic hydrogenotrophy on the early Martian system. They combined a photochemical climate model (looking at the influence of radiation on the chemicals in the Martian atmosphere) and a model of the early Martian crust. They could then analyse atmospheric composition, climate, thermal properties of the crust, and gas exchange between the crust and atmosphere.

“We find that subsurface habitability was very likely, and limited mainly by the extent of surface ice coverage,” the authors write. “Biomass productivity could have been as high as in the early Earth’s ocean.”

“However, the predicted atmospheric composition shift caused by methanogenesis would have triggered a global cooling event, ending potential early warm conditions, compromising surface habitability and forcing the biosphere deep into the Martian crust,” the authors say.

Hydrogenotrophic methanogen effects on Earth’s early climate of were recently analysed. Comparing this study to the modelling of early Mars shows similarities and differences.

“On the one hand, models predict very likely habitability to hydrogenotrophic methanogens on both young planets, with similar biomass production,” the authors write. “On the other hand, climate feedbacks work in opposite directions.”

While on Earth hydrogenotrophic methanogens may have helped maintain temperate conditions, they would have cooled the early Martian surface by 33-45°C. This is because on Earth, the nitrogen-rich atmosphere would have seen increased methane production led to a greenhouse effect. On Mars, however, H₂ actually has a stronger greenhouse effect than the methane that would have been produced by its consumption.

https://cosmosmagazine.com/space/mars-methane-microbes/

 

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Oct 13, 2022

Meet the Desert RATS Crew for Upcoming Artemis Rover Mission Simulations

As NASA works to develop technologies needed to establish a long-term presence at the Moon with future Artemis missions, pressurized rovers in which humans can live and work will play an important role. 

To help develop this key technology, a crew of six astronauts and engineers from NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) will take turns in groups of two over the next week, living and working in a NASA pressurized rover prototype during a mission simulation for Artemis missions called Desert Research and Technology Studies (D-RATS).

D-RATS will consist of three simulated missions, each lasting three days, and will be located at Black Point Lava Flow, 40 miles from Flagstaff, Arizona. This unique location will allow teams to emulate conditions astronauts will experience near the lunar South Pole during Artemis missions including challenging terrain, interesting geology, and minimal communications.

Meet the crew behind Desert RATS:

 

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Oct 12 2022

NASA’s Mars Mission Shields Up for Tests

Micrometeorites are a potential hazard for any space mission, including NASA’s Mars Sample Return. The tiny rocks can travel up to 50 miles per second. At these speeds, "even dust could cause damage to a spacecraft," said Bruno Sarli, NASA engineer at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland.

Sarli leads a team designing shields to protect NASA's Mars Earth Entry System from micrometeorites and space debris. Recently, he traveled to a NASA lab, designed to safely recreate dangerous impacts, to test the team’s shields and computer models.

Set far away from residents and surrounded by dunes, the Remote Hypervelocity Test Laboratory at NASA’s White Sands Test Facility in Las Cruces, New Mexico, has supported every human spaceflight program from the Space Shuttle to Artemis. The lab also supports testing for the International Space Station, Commercial Crew, and Commercial Resupply programs.

The lab uses 2-stage light gas guns to accelerate objects to speeds that simulate micrometeorite and orbital debris impacts on spacecraft shielding. The first stage uses gun powder as a propellent the way a standard gun does. The second stage uses highly compressed hydrogen gas that pushes gas into a smaller tube, increasing pressure in the gun, like a car piston. The gun's pressure gets so high that it would level the building if it were to explode. "That is why we hung out in the bunker during the test," said Sarli.

 

NASA’s Remote Hypervelocity Test Laboratory is equipped with four 2-stage light gas guns; two 0.17-caliber (0.177-inch bore diameter), a 0.50-caliber (0.50" bore diameter), and a 1-Inch (1.00" bore diameter) gun at the facility. The 1-Inch range is 160 feet long, from gunpowder breech to the end of the target chamber outside

Credits: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

 

Engineers spent three days preparing for a one-second experiment. They used the lab’s mid-sized high-pressure (50-caliber range) 2-stage light gas gun that shoots small pellets more than 5 miles per second. "At that speed, you could travel from San Francisco to New York in five minutes," said Dennis Garcia, the .50-caliber test conductor at White Sands.

While the pellet's speed is fast, micrometeorites travel six to seven times faster in space. As a result, the team relies on computer models to simulate the actual velocities of micrometeorites. The slower rate will test their computer model's ability to simulate impacts on their shield designs and allows the team to study the material reaction to such energy.

Mars Sample Return is a multi-mission campaign designed to retrieve scientifically selected samples of rock and sediment that the Perseverance rover is collecting on the surface of Mars. Bringing those samples to Earth would allow scientist to study them using the most advance laboratory instruments-those that will exist in the coming decade and those in the decades to follow. The campaign is one of the most ambitious endeavors in spaceflight history, involving multiple spacecraft, multiple launches, and multiple government agencies. Goddard is currently designing and developing the Capture, Containment, and Return System that would deliver the Mars sample tubes back to Earth.

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Rani Gran
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2022/nasa-s-mars-mission-shields-up-for-tests

 

 

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Rosalind Franklin: Europe's delayed Mars rover to receive rescue package

Europe's research ministers are to be asked for "up to €360m" (£313.5m) to start the process of reconfiguring the Rosalind Franklin Mars rover mission.

The UK-built robot missed its window to go to the Red Planet this year when the West suspended all scientific co-operation with Russia.

Engineers are now having to redesign the project to include only European and American components.

This shift in emphasis means the robot will not now launch until 2028.

A long cruise through space would result in a 2030 landing.

Eight years is a long time to wait, but European Space Agency (Esa) officials are convinced the scientific imperative behind the mission will still be compelling at the end of the decade.

"The point is there is no other mission that is foreseen or planned to actually go to a location on Mars that is four billion years old, and drill below the surface to look for prebiotic chemistry," Dr David Parker, Esa's head of human and robotic exploration, told BBC News.

FULL REPORT

 

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Nasa space probes document big impacts on Mars

VIDEO 

Space probes have witnessed a big impact crater being formed on Mars - the largest in the Solar System ever caught in the act of excavation.

A van-sized object dug out a 150m-wide bowl on the Red Planet, hurling debris up to 35km (19 miles) away.

In more familiar terms, that's a crater roughly one-and-a-half times the size of London's Trafalgar Square.

And its blast zone would fit neatly in the area inside the UK capital's orbital motorway, the M25.

Scientists detected the event using the seismometer on the US space agency's InSight lander. The probe picked up the ground vibrations.

Confirmation came from follow-up imagery acquired by Nasa's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). This satellite routinely pictures the planet and could produce the before-and-after proof of a major surface disturbance, corresponding to the exact timing and in the expected direction and distance (3,500km) from InSight.

"This is the biggest new crater we've ever seen," said Dr Ingrid Daubar from Brown University. "It's about 500ft wide, or about two city blocks across, and even though meteorites are hitting the planet all the time, this crater is more than 10 times larger than the typical new craters we see forming on Mars.

"We thought a crater this size might form somewhere on the planet once every few decades, maybe once a generation, so it was very exciting to be able to witness this event."

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[CaaC (John)+]

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Spectacular Mars asteroid impact probably spells doom for InSight.

Nasa says its likely the impact dislodged water at the equator which is where they want the missions to Mars to land.

From COSMOS US Correspondent

Richard A Lovett

Last year on Christmas Eve, Santa gave planetary scientists a rare gift. A once-in-a-lifetime asteroid smacked into Mars, just in time to be observed, not only from space, but also on the ground.

The Mars asteroid impact was first observed by NASA’s InSight lander, whose seismometer recorded it as a magnitude 4 temblor—one of the larger marsquakes in its 4-year mission to measure the Red Planet’s seismic activity.

InSight’s scientists quickly determined the epicenter of the temblor, but it wasn’t until six weeks later that a different team, working with cameras on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) got wind of it took a look at their own data.

What they found startled them. Not only was there a new crater, right at InSight’s projected epicenter, but it was big enough to show up on low-resolution images used to produce daily weather maps of the entire planet: clearly visible on Christmas Day (thank you Santa), and not the day before.

When yet another team zoomed in on it, they found a 150-meter-wide crater with debris scattered tens of kilometers away, suggestive of an impact by an asteroid 5-12 meters in diameter. Such an asteroid would have burned up harmlessly in Earth’s atmosphere, but in the thin Martian air it would have hit with the impact of an atom-bomb burst.

MRO has been in orbit for 16 years, and scientists using it have found numerous newly created craters on Mars. But nothing like this. “It’s huge,” Liliya Posiolova, of Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego, California, said at a 27 October press briefing.

It was also the first time the moment of impact could be constrained that precisely. “Typically, we can do a few years, maybe occasionally down to one year,” Posiolova said.

All of that is exciting enough, but there’s also important science to be learned. Just to start with, says Bruce Banerdt, InSight’s principal investigator, being able to spot the exact location of the impact is invaluable for validating and calibrating his own team’s techniques for locating the source of seismic events. “It turns out they are pretty good,” he told Cosmos.

And it’s not just seismologists who are reaping the benefits. “There is a whole line of research this opens up into the dynamical process of crater formation during impact,” Banerdt said. “We have already been able to start differentiating the energy dispersed into the atmosphere versus that going into heat, fracturing, shaking, ejecta, etc.”

There is also an important practical implication. One of the things the orbiting cameras saw were blocks of ice blown onto the surface from the impact. These had to have come from belowground, and at only 35° from the equator (roughly the equivalent of Sydney) this is the closest to the Martian equator at which ice has ever been observed.

“This is the warmest spot on Mars we’ve ever seen ice,” says Ingrid Daubar, of Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island. “Scientists are going to use this to constrain past climate changes on Mars, when and how this ice was deposited, buried, and preserved.”

Not to mention that similar subsurface ice might be available to future astronauts. “This is really exciting,” says Lori Glaze, director of NASA’s Planetary Science Division. “We know that there’s water ice near the poles on Mars, but in planning for future human exploration, we want to land as near the equator as possible. Having access to ice at these lower latitudes can be really useful.”

Meanwhile, InSight is probably on its last legs. Dust has been collecting on its solar panels, and a giant dust storm has further reduced the amount of solar energy reaching them. Unless a miracle happens soon to blow the dust away, the end is probably near.

“That’s a sad thing to contemplate,” Banerdt says, “but we’ve gone well beyond the intended lifespan. “What we believe is that in somewhere between four and eight weeks we expect the lander to not have enough power to operate.”

https://cosmosmagazine.com/space/mars-asteroid-impact/

 

Edited October 28, 2022 by CaaC (John)
Spacing correction