Mars rover Perseverance (Perseverance) landed successfully on the surface of Mars on the 18th.” It’s great to be going ‘to work’ on the first day.” Dr. Jung Yen, head of the Robotics Interface and Visualization Group at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), which is responsible for driving and operating the rover, said with a smile that after the rover landed, it was his and his colleagues’ job to do the rest.
Watching live from Home at the moment of landing that day, Yim said his shift would start at 4 p.m. West Coast Time that day until 4 a.m. the next morning.” I’m very excited right now,” he said, adding that many of his friends texted him immediately after the rover landed, jokingly saying, “You have job security now. Because of the Epidemic, the team could not get together for a celebration, so he and his colleagues celebrated remotely at home after Trailhead landed, sharing their favorite moments from memory.
The next task for Yan and his team was to check that the Mars rover was functioning properly, “like all new vehicles, at first to see if there is any damage.” He recalled that the last time Curiosity landed in 2012, it was discovered that one of the wind speed measurement components had been hit by a rock, so the entire rover will be inspected over the next three days. At the same time, the most important thing in these three days is to give the Mars rover “a head change. He said, because in the past seven months are like “flight mode”, in the journey Mars rover only need navigation, speed measurement and other simple functions, so the Mars rover’s operating system is similar in safe mode, relatively small and simple. When it gets to the surface of Mars, it will need autopilot, image processing and other functions, so it needs a “new head”.
At the time of the Mars rover Trail landing, Yan was watching live at home and ready to go to work. (Courtesy of Yan Zheng)
After landing, Trailblazer soon sent back the first photo. He explained the photo was just a pixel-reduced icon shot, a sort of peace offering. But he said the picture was clearer than the one Curiosity sent back at the time, with less dust on the filter, indicating that the precise spotting of the landing was done very well and was “awesome. He expects that in about two days, the video of the landing process will be sent back to Earth and published. It’s the first time a camera has been mounted on the lander and it’s “interesting” to see the entire landing process.
“The mood is exciting,” and behind this mission is a decade of work by several thousand people.” Ten years to sharpen a sword, it is naturally exciting to see the results”, but he also said there are more challenges ahead. Especially this time Trail is ten times more sophisticated than Curiosity, which is even more stressful for the pilot. But Yan Zheng has been driving Mars rovers such as Opportunity, Spirit and Curiosity for many years, and is already a veteran driver, full of confidence.
Recently, China’s “Tianqian-1” also arrived in Mars orbit. Yan said the mission has a satellite, a lander and a Mars rover, three missions in one, which is a very impressive achievement. He lamented that despite the tensions between the U.S. and China, the aerospace achievement is a matter of honor for mankind, and most of his colleagues at JPL are optimistic about the development of China’s aerospace. He said that the information of the aerospace community should be open, because more people will come to participate. As long as the original intention of exploration is to expand human knowledge, the field of knowledge can be expanded farther. The aerospace achievements are borderless and represent a new mileage of science and technology for all mankind, which has nothing to do with inter-country, ideology or economy.
Soon after landing, Trailblazer sent back the first photo. (NASA official website)
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