The European Space Agency’s satellite TGO has captured a “full view” of the Trailblazer landing site on Mars. The objects represented in the image are, from left, the parachute and back cover, the auxiliary landing gear, the Trail Rover, and the heat shield. A scale of 300 meters is also indicated in the lower left corner of the image.
The European Space Agency (ESA) satellite captured an aerial view of the rover, auxiliary landing gear, parachute, back cover and heat shield all scattered on the Martian surface after Perseverance landed.
On Feb. 18, Perseverance successfully landed at the Jezero Crater on Mars, thanks to the precise and consistent coordination of multiple components and hundreds of key maneuvers.
The weights used to balance Trailhead’s center of gravity, the antennae responsible for communicating with Earth and Mars orbiting satellites, and the parachute were all pre-positioned in Trailhead’s back cover. Before beginning its descent in the Martian atmosphere, Trailblazer will have to wear a “heat shield” on the side facing the Martian ground to help it withstand most of the heat.
During the landing process, these parts were discarded one by one after use and scattered around the landing site. The ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO), a collaborative project between the European Space Agency and the Russian Space Agency (Roscosmos), captured such a “full view” of the landing site “.
The photo shows the landing gear located about 650 meters from the rover. The landing bracket landed with the probe vehicle suspended by cables, and after landing the landing bracket quickly separated and crashed in a safe location. The parachute and back cover were located approximately 1,200 meters northwest of the rover; the heat shield was approximately 1,450 meters northeast.
This photo was taken five days after the Trailblazer landed. As Time passes, this “junk” will be buried by the Martian sands.
The main mission of the TGO satellite is to probe the composition of the Martian atmosphere and to explore for evidence of Martian geological activity and even any potential biology left behind. During the Trail landing, TGO was involved in the task of relaying data for NASA.
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