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This is the comprehensive story of NASA's pioneering Mars 2020 mission, which at this moment continues to break ground on the surface of the Red Planet.The book takes readers through every stage of the Mars mission, describing its major goals and objectives, the cutting-edge technology and instrumentation onboard the Perseverance rover and other spacecraft components, and the members of the scientific team who steered the mission along the way.
Mars 2020 is the first to actually take samples of the Red Planet and prepare them for subsequent return to Earth. The chapters therefore delve into how and why Jezero Crater was selected as the optimal landing and sample collecting site to meet the mission objectives. Featuring dozens of high-resolution images of the mission, this book gives readers a deeper understanding of the technology underlying Mars 2020 and why its work is so important for planetary science and space exploration.
List of contents
Chapter 1. Introduction.- Chapter 2. The Mars 2020 Mission.- Chapter 3. Perseverance's Design.- Chapter 4. Landing Site.- Chapter 5. Surface Operations and Science.- Chapter 6. Ingenuity.- Chapter 7. Mars 2020 Science and Engineering Teams.- Chapter 8. Mars Sample Return.- Chapter 9. Conclusions.
About the author
Manfred "Dutch" von Ehrenfried worked in the spaceflight, aviation and nuclear fields for about 25 years. He was a member of the original NASA Space Task Group for Project Mercury and was a NASA Flight Controller in the Mission Control Center for many Mercury, Gemini and Apollo Missions. He also worked on some of the Apollo Lunar Experiment Packages. He also worked in the NASA Headquarters Space Station Task Force and the Program Office as a contractor for 10 years.
As the sensor operator on the NASA High Altitude Aircraft, he worked with scientists to determine how best to obtain the data they wanted from their instruments and develop a flight plan to achieve their objectives. The sensors included infrared scanners and spectrometers, radiometers, multispectral cameras, large format cameras and other prototype systems. These flights were from 60,000 to 70,000 feet and required the use of full pressure suits. In conjunction with this work, he was an Apollo Pressure Suit test subject which included tests in the Zero G aircraft, centrifuge, and vacuum chamber. As part of this work, he was the NASA MSC Chief of Science Requirements and Operations Branch. He is currently a Board Member of the Manned Spaceflight Operations Association.
