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These are the first images of the NASA rover "Perseverance" from Mars.
The spacecraft landed on the planet on Thursday evening, almost seven months after its launch on July 30, 2020. "Perseverance" touched down in the Jezero crater as planned.
There was once a lake up to 250 meters deep, larger than Lake Constance, and into which several rivers flowed.
Christoph Seidler, DER SPIEGEL
“You will especially look at the river deltas, where there was, so to speak, shallow water and where you could hope that there would be such a biofilm. That’s what you would expect on earth, for example, so masses of microbes that might have left their mark on the rock. "
Mars is around 230 million kilometers from Earth - radio signals from "Perseverance" only reach the control center after 11 minutes and 22 seconds.
On Mars, NASA is looking for evidence of past life: the first missions have already detected traces of water and complex organic molecules.
Now the next stage follows.
Christoph Seidler, DER SPIEGEL
»The idea would be that you want to look with this mission, if there are actually traces somewhere in the rock that indicate that there were once smaller microbes.
And then the Mars rover will take samples and analyze them on site, and it will also pack them - and this is super exciting because this has never happened before - in small metal tubes, which would then be ready to be transported back to the Earth.
So, the goal is that the particularly interesting samples that the rover identifies there are brought back to Earth with later missions in order to be examined here in earthly laboratories in order to answer the question: Has there ever been life on Mars given? "
If there are no traces of microbes in the samples, it will be difficult to maintain the hypothesis of life on Mars.
Transporting the tubes back would also be a test run for manned missions to Mars, just like any landing.
"Perseverance" raced through the Martian atmosphere at up to 20,000 kilometers per hour, had to withstand temperatures of up to 1,300 degrees Celsius, then slowed down and touched down in rugged terrain.
Christoph Seidler, DER SPIEGEL
»Landing on Mars is unimaginably complicated.
At NASA they like to talk about the seven minutes of terror.
This is the time, so to speak, that at the very end the probe has to survive on its approach through the rather thin but effective Martian atmosphere.
The Europeans have been painfully aware that a Mars landing is really not that easy, a Mars landing went wrong in October 2016, where they tried to drop a lander there and that ended in a crash. "
Not only Esa and Nasa are exploring Mars: China sent a probe into Mars orbit in February, as did the United Arab Emirates.
This is good news for research.
Christoph Seidler, DER SPIEGEL
»I would actually not use the term race because space travel is relatively cooperative in this area. That means, of course, you can already see what you can do with your own programs. You are certainly proud when you can demonstrate certain technologies. But these programs are not really competitive from my point of view. "
The return transport of the Mars samples is planned as an American-European joint project for 2031.
To do this, "Perseverance" first has to fill the tubes with rock.
Christoph Seidler, DER SPIEGEL
»The rover has to go to the exciting places, NASA has already drawn up schedules, where should it go and when. In case of doubt, this will take a while. And, as I said, it will take a while before we actually have answers to the question that is fundamentally at stake: Are there traces of life there? That won't happen today or tomorrow until we have results. "