This site may earn affiliate commissions from the links on this page. Terms of use.

mars 2022 rover

The Mars 2022 rover project is in full swing at NASA, and the agency has chosen to base the new rover on the phenomenally successful Marvel design. That means the rover needs to deadening down in the Martian atmosphere before engaging its rocket-based landing system. NASA has just completed the beginning real-world examination of the supersonic parachute that'll aid the rover practise that.

When the 2022 rover enters Mars' atmosphere, information technology'll be moving at over 12,000 mph (v.4 kilometers per second), and it'll weigh around 2,000 pounds like curiosity. You need a big parachute to slow something similar that down, and the trouble is much more circuitous on Mars. Earth'south atmosphere is much denser than Mars, so the parachute needs to be extra large to produce enough drag. Lower atmospheric pressure also changes the way parachutes deploy, and that was the focus of the first exam.

Earth isn't Mars, but there are withal means to examination parts of the 2022 mission in the real world. The behavior of the chute tin be tested at high altitudes where pressure is lower. These tests are now underway in a program known as the Advanced Supersonic Parachute Aggrandizement Enquiry Experiment (ASPIRE). In the only-completed first trial, a small-scale Black Brant Nine rocket was launched from NASA Goddard Space Flight Heart's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. The rocket reached Mach iii as it ascended to an altitude of about 31 miles (50 kilometers), where the first stage dropped off.

The only payload for this launch was the parachute, which was triggered equally the rocket'due south second stage began dipping back downwards into the atmosphere. The machinery activated when it reached an altitude of 26 miles. Atmospheric density in that location is similar to Mars, and then it'southward a better test of the supersonic parachute.

The 100-pound parachute fired from the rocket at nearly 100 miles per 60 minutes. The rocket was nevertheless moving at ane.8 times the speed of sound (about 1,300 mph) as the parachute fully deployed, generating more than than 35,000 pounds of drag strength. A high-speed camera filmed the whole affair at 1,000 frames per second. You lot can see that footage slowed down at the end of the video above. The rocket splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean a mere 35 minutes after launch where NASA recovered it.

NASA engineers will get over the ASPIRE footage frame-past-frame to study how the parachute behaved during deployment. This design is similar to the parachute used for the Marvel landing in 2022, but NASA plans to develop an even stronger version of this parachute. That eventual system will get role of the terminal 2022 mission design.