NASA Hacks Perseverance And Mars Helicopter To Face The Dangerous River Delta
NASA hacked its Perseverance rover and Mars helicopter for a new mission to the dangerous terrain of the Red Planet’s river delta. Perseverance and its partner Ingenuity have been scouting and sampling Mars for over a year. Their main objective is to find signs of life on the planet.
The safest and shortest way to the new river delta mission site required the vehicles to return to their original landing place. It took several long weeks to get there. Seasons have changed, massive regional dust storms have passed, challenges have come and gone, and both the rover and the helicopter have endured.
Related: NASA Flew Its Mars Helicopter Again After Saving It From Dangerous Debris
Jagged cliffs, angled surfaces, projecting boulders, and sand-filled pockets that could stop a rover in its tracks (or upend a helicopter upon landing) await Perseverance and Ingenuity in the Mars river delta. However, the delta is also the best opportunity NASA has to find life, so the space agency is willing to take the risks. To give them a better chance of surviving the journey, NASA hacked and upgraded both the helicopter and the rover.
NASA says that Perseverance’s self-driving capabilities will be tested to the limit. The rover will attempt to cover more distance in one month than any rover has done before. It will do this thanks to AI, human commands, and “thinking while driving”. Due to the delays in communications, NASA cannot drive the rover in real time. A team of fourteen shift-rotating NASA mobility experts will be writing the commands. NASA explains that Perseverance can take and process images while moving, allowing it to navigate obstacles. If it comes too close to a boulder, cannot clear a rock, or believes it can get trapped in
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