Mac Uni Alum leads Mars Rover mission

Perseverance, the NASA Mars Rover will land on the surface of the Jezero crater on Friday, the culmination of the mission lead by principal investigator and Mac Uni Alum, Dr Abigail Allwood.

The first female (and first Australian) principal investigator on a NASA Mars mission, Dr Allwood is part of the Mars2020 mission to search for ancient life on Mars.

NASA is due to land Perseverance – Percy for short – on Friday morning (AEDT) on the surface of Jezero crater, described by NASA as the most challenging Martian terrain ever targeted for landing. The rover is part of the Mars2020 mission, along with the small helicopter Ingenuity, which travelled to the Red Planet attached to the belly of the rover and will attempt the first flight in another planet’s atmosphere.

Percy, launched from Cape Canaveral in Florida on July 30 last year, has a suite of seven instruments that make it the most advanced astrobiological rover to touch down on Mars.

These instruments include a Norwegian radar (RIMFAX) to search for water and ice underground, and determine the sediments beneath the crater; a UV Raman/luminescence instrument (SHERLOC) to scan mineralogy, but also search for organic compounds; and PIXL, an X-ray spectrometer to measure the element composition of the surface sediments and rock.

These tools will ascertain the past habitability of the site, but can also search for biosignatures in the geological record. NASA says Perseverance will spend at least one Mars year (two Earth years) exploring the landing site region.