[NASA] Perseverance Matters

[SpaceMan 0]

Mars: Perseverance (Mars 2020)

• Perseverance Home
• Science
• This is the hidden content, please

  • Sign In
  • or
  • Sign Up
• Multimedia
• Mars Missions
• The Solar System

2 min read

Perseverance Matters

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

Close-up view of Cheyava Falls natural surface on Mars where chunks of olivine (pale green) in the straight veins and leopard spots in the center are seen.

NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

In January 2024, the

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

instrument aboard NASA’s

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

encountered a significant issue. A  

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

in the instrument’s motor caused the dust cover and autofocus mechanism to become inoperative, putting the rover’s SHERLOC Raman spectroscopy capability at risk.

Although Mars had posed an unexpected challenge, members of the SHERLOC operations team working together with the rover engineers refused to give up.

Fortunately, a motion of the arm on Sol 1077, almost exactly two months after the original issue occurred, resulted in the dust cover moving to a nearly fully open position. As a result, the team began to look for ways to focus the optics and operate SHERLOC with the dust cover in this open position. These efforts involved many trials and errors, several rounds of diagnostic examinations, analyses, and troubleshooting around the clock.

And as they say, “It does not matter how slowly you go so long as you do not stop”.

After much hard work and persistence, the team successfully brought the

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

in June 2024 with a successful observation of the rock target

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

. It was just the start of an exciting summer for SHERLOC.

In July 2024, SHERLOC’s Raman capability, whose destiny was uncertain a month ago, performed multiple calibrations, scans, and observations on a rock named “Cheyava Falls” and the team was thrilled to discover the mission’s most compelling evidence for organics in the Jezero crater. Organic compounds can be formed through biological or non-biological processes and the organics that SHERLOC observed in Cheyava Falls would need to be studied in laboratories here on Earth for their origin to be determined. Regardless of how they formed, the Cheyava Falls organics could tell us a great deal about the Red Planet’s past and present carbon inventory, a possible early carbon cycle, and the precursor conditions to life as we know it.

It is an important and exciting juncture in Mars exploration and astrobiology. This year, the SHERLOC instrument beat the odds and made one of the most exciting discoveries of the Mars 2020 mission. As the mission encounters and overcomes problems like that experienced by SHERLOC, we find that exploring Mars can also lead to discovering the team’s persistence and Perseverance.

Written by Anushree Srivastava, Postdoctoral Fellow at Carnegie Institution. Member of Mars 2020 SHERLOC Science and Operations Team

Share

• 
  
  
• 
  
  
• 
  
  
• 
  
  

Details

Last Updated

Oct 07, 2024

Related Terms

• This is the hidden content, please

  • Sign In
  • or
  • Sign Up

Explore More

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

/applications/core/interface/js/spacer.png">

2 min read

Sols 4323-4324: Surfin’ Our Way out of the Channel

Article


4 days ago

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

/applications/core/interface/js/spacer.png">

2 min read

Sols 4321-4322: Sailing Out of Gediz Vallis

Article


5 days ago

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

/applications/core/interface/js/spacer.png">

2 min read

Sols 4318-4320: One Last Weekend in the Channel

Article


1 week ago

Keep Exploring

Discover More Topics From NASA

Mars

Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun, and the seventh largest. It’s the only planet we know of inhabited…

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

/applications/core/interface/js/spacer.png">

All Mars Resources

Explore this collection of Mars images, videos, resources, PDFs, and toolkits. Discover valuable content designed to inform, educate, and inspire,…

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

/applications/core/interface/js/spacer.png">

Rover Basics

Each robotic explorer sent to the Red Planet has its own unique capabilities driven by science. Many attributes of a…

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

/applications/core/interface/js/spacer.png">

Mars Exploration: Science Goals

The key to understanding the past, present or future potential for life on Mars can be found in NASA’s four…

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

/applications/core/interface/js/spacer.png">

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up