NASA Engineer explains what's it like to land on 'hot and challenging' Mars

Landing humans on Mars in this century is the most ambitious objective space agencies are currently pursuing. Several NASA robots like the Perseverance and Curiosity rover along with the Mars Orbiter are collecting data that is helping in the preparation before humans set their foot on the barren land of the neighbouring planet. However, piercing through the thick Martian atmosphere would be a tough nut to crack which the scientists have learned after decades of data collection and from the landing of two major Mars rovers. Shedding more light on the landing challenges posed by the red planet, NASA engineer Alex Scammell has tried to explain through a video clip what it's like to land on Mars. 

It's intense, challenging and exciting: Scammell

Scamell, who is working in NASA as a Thermal Engineer said, "It’s an intense, challenging and exciting series of events". Explaining the landing process of the Perseverance rover, Scamell said that the rover decelerated from a descending speed of nearly 21,000 kilometres per hour in order to ensure a soft landing in seven minutes. Several instruments such as a parachute, thrusters equipped on the rover and a sky crane helped the rover descend in a controlled manner.

According to Scammell, the Martian atmosphere had a big role to play in the soft landing of the rover. He explains that the heat shield installed on the Perseverance rover was heated to a temperature of 1,300 degrees celsius owing to the drag created by the atmosphere which in turn helped in a slower descend. Scammel says, "Understanding what the heat shield experienced during entry can help us design more efficient heat shields for future missions". 

The Perseverance rover carries a heat shield that is installed with a set of temperature and pressure sensors, called the Mars Entry, Descent, and Landing Instrumentation 2 or MEDLI2 to measure the extreme conditions endured by the rover during the entire landing process. "With the data collected from MEDLI2, we'll be able to improve sizing predictions for future heat shields and save spacecraft mass for scientific instruments, supplies and even humans". Calling the process "hot and challenging", he assured that the engineers are working hard to make the process better for missions in the future.

Image: Twitter/@NASA