{"id":1168,"date":"2022-01-20T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-01-20T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/?p=1168"},"modified":"2024-05-30T19:57:50","modified_gmt":"2024-05-30T19:57:50","slug":"perseverances-first-year-on-mars-purdue-professor-mission-team-member-looks-at-what-is-ahead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/2022\/Q1\/perseverances-first-year-on-mars-purdue-professor-mission-team-member-looks-at-what-is-ahead","title":{"rendered":"Perseverance\u2019s first year on Mars: Purdue professor, mission team member looks at what is ahead"},"content":{"rendered":"

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. —<\/p> \n

Almost one year into the Mars rover mission, accomplishing its goal is on the horizon for Purdue University\u2019s Briony Horgan and the Perseverance team.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Feb. 18 will mark one year since the rover landed on the red planet following a seven-month, 300-million-mile flight across space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Horgan, associate professor of planetary science in the Purdue College of Science\u2019s Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, said anticipation is building as the team focuses on the mission goal: researching a now-dry large river delta.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen we chose the landing site, it was because of the delta; that\u2019s the reason we\u2019re here,\u201d Horgan said. \u201cSo, we\u2019ll be excited to finally get up close and study it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Horgan has been involved with several aspects of this mission. She led mineralogy research using satellite data before landing, and her team produced one of the major results on the location that contributed to NASA\u2019s selection of Jezero Crater<\/a> \u2013 which once held a lake and the river delta \u2013 as the landing site.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u201cWe\u2019ll spend most of the next year on the delta, exploring this ancient lake and river environment and looking for signs of ancient life like organic material and signs of microbes,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The mission is intended to last three years as the Mars rover collects rock and dust samples. Horgan said that after the three-year point, the hope is Perseverance will continue outside Jezero Crater for as long as possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Horgan is now the long-term planner as part of the science leadership for NASA\u2019s Perseverance Mars rover, helping guide the mission strategy and scientific investigations. She discusses the rover mission on an episode of the \u201cThis Is Purdue<\/a>\u201d podcast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the key objective for the rover is searching for signs of ancient microbial life by examining the planet\u2019s geology, there\u2019s been a learning curve to the first year of work. Once the rover began to traverse the landscape, things were deliberate, with 12-15 hours of travel taking just as long to plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the second year approaching, Horgan said the team is hoping to step away from that semi-autonomous travel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWith all the new technology on the rover, we\u2019re working on how to drive on consecutive days and do longer and longer autonomous drives,\u201d she said. \u201cThen we\u2019ll make a beeline for the delta as fast as we can.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Horgan said the mission already has proved both fruitful and surprising with the Mars rock and atmosphere samples collected. A layered ridge spotted after landing was initially expected to be semimentary rock that could hold biosignatures from the planet\u2019s past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Closer inspection, Horgan said, found that it was an ancient lava flow, but one that could still provide answers with the sample drilled from it. The same rocks are believed to underlie the delta and can be eventually examined for dating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u201cBy doing that, we can actually figure out when the delta was there and when there was water in the crater,\u201d Horgan said. \u201cThat\u2019s a really big question because we only have estimates for when we think Mars was wet and was habitable. We really don\u2019t know for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Horgan said the mission remains on track and has already surpassed the work of the Mars rover Curiosity, which was launched in November 2011. Four unique rock and dust samples are expected to be collected by next month\u2019s landing anniversary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an incredibly ambitious mission, with goals that are leaps and bounds beyond any previous Mars rover and really any previous space mission had been supposed to do: how far and fast we\u2019re supposed to drive, how many samples we\u2019re supposed to drill \u2026,\u201d Horgan said. \u201cWe\u2019re still learning a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

About Purdue University<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Purdue University is a top public research institution developing practical solutions to today\u2019s toughest challenges. Ranked in each of the last four years as one of the 10 Most Innovative universities in the United States by U.S. News & World Report, Purdue delivers world-changing research and out-of-this-world discovery. Committed to hands-on and online, real-world learning, Purdue offers a transformative education to all. Committed to affordability and accessibility, Purdue has frozen tuition and most fees at 2012-13 levels, enabling more students than ever to graduate debt-free. See how Purdue never stops in the persistent pursuit of the next giant leap at https:\/\/purdue.edu\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\n
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\n Writer, Media contact:<\/strong> Brian Huchel, bhuchel@purdue.edu<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0
Source:<\/strong> Briony Horgan, briony@purdue.edu<\/a>, @ironywithab <\/p>\n <\/div>\n

\n
\n

Note to journalists:<\/p>\n

\n Journalists visiting campus should follow\u00a0visitor health guidelines<\/a>. <\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Almost one year into the Mars rover mission, accomplishing its goal is on the horizon for Purdue University\u2019s Briony Horgan and the Perseverance team. Feb. 18 will mark one year since the rover landed on the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1171,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[54,7],"tags":[],"department":[58,32],"source":[29],"purdue_today_topic":[66],"coauthors":[40],"class_list":["post-1168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-research-excellence","department-purdue-moves","department-science","source-purdue-news","purdue_today_topic-research"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1168"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1168\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1176,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1168\/revisions\/1176"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1168"},{"taxonomy":"department","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/department?post=1168"},{"taxonomy":"source","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/source?post=1168"},{"taxonomy":"purdue_today_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/purdue_today_topic?post=1168"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=1168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}