PIA24448: Perseverance Rover Drops its Debris Shield


Perseverance Rover Drops its Debris Shield

Caption:

Click here for animation

The debris shield, a protective covering on the bottom of NASA's Perseverance rover, was released on March 21, 2021, the 30th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. The debris shield protects the agency's Ingenuity helicopter during landing; releasing it allows the helicopter to rotate down out of the rover's belly. This image was taken by the WATSON (Wide Angle Topographic Sensor for Operations and eNgineering) camera on the SHERLOC (Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman and Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals) instrument, located at the end of the rover's long robotic arm.

Background Info:

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory built and manages operations of Perseverance and Ingenuity for the agency. Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages JPL for NASA. WATSON was built by Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego, and is operated jointly by MSSS and JPL.

The Mars helicopter technology demonstration activity is supported by NASA's Science Mission Directorate, the NASA Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate, and the NASA Space Technology Mission Directorate.

A key objective for Perseverance's mission on Mars is astrobiology , including the search for 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 (broken rock and dust).

Subsequent NASA missions, in cooperation with ESA (European Space Agency), 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.

For more about Perseverance: mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/ .

For more about Ingenuity: go.nasa.gov/ingenuity .

Cataloging Keywords:

Name Value Additional Values
Target Mars
System
Target Type Planet
Mission Mars 2020
Instrument Host Perseverance Ingenuity
Host Type Rover Helicopter
Instrument Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals (SHERLOC) Wide Angle Topographic Sensor for Operations and Engineering (WATSON)
Detector
Extra Keywords Color, Dust, Moon, Rotation
Acquisition Date
Release Date 2021-03-22
Date in Caption 2021-03-21
Image Credit NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Source photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA24448
Identifier PIA24448