NASA's Mars 2020 Gets HD Eyes
Technicians install a Mastcam-Z high-definition camera in the remote sensing mast that will later go on NASA's Mars 2020 rover.
One
of the first operations the Mars 2020 rover will perform after touching down on
the Red Planet's Jezero Crater on Feb. 18, 2021, will be to raise its remote sensing
mast (RSM), which carries important optics and instrumentation.In
this picture - taken on May 23, 2019, in the Spacecraft Assembly Facility's
High Bay 1 clean room at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California - engineers re-install the cover
to the RSM head after integration of two Mastcam-Z
high-definition cameras. Visible below the red lens cover is the left Mastcam-Z
camera (with the "Remove Before Flight" labels); support equipment
blocks the right Mastcam-Z from view. The RSM and its twin cameras will be
installed on the rover's deck the week of June 3, 2019.Mastcam-Z is a multispectral, stereoscopic imaging instrument
that will enhance the Mars 2020 rover's driving and core-sampling capabilities.
It will also enable science team members to observe textural, mineralogical,
structural and morphologic details in rocks and sediment at any location within
the rover's field of view, helping them piece together the planet's geologic
history."Mastcam-Z will be the first Mars color camera that can
zoom, enabling 3D images at unprecedented resolution," said Mastcam-Z Principal
Investigator Jim Bell of Arizona State University in Tempe. "With a resolution
of three-hundredths of an inch [0.8 millimeters] in front of the rover and less
than one-and-a-half inches [38 millimeters] from over 330 feet [100 meters]
away - Mastcam-Z images will play a key role in selecting the best possible
samples to return from Jezero Crater."Mastcam
Z's capabilities are not the only firsts of the mission. Mars 2020 will be the
first spacecraft in the history of planetary exploration with the ability to accurately
retarget its point of touchdown during the landing sequence. And the rover
carries a sample-caching system that will collect Martian rock and soil samples
and store them on the planet's surface for retrieval and return to Earth by subsequent
missions.Mars
2020 will launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida in July of
2020.JPL is building and will manage operations of
the Mars 2020 rover for the NASA Science Mission Directorate at the agency's
headquarters in Washington.If you want to send your
name to Mars with NASA's 2020 mission, you can do so from now until Sept. 30,
2019. Add your name to the list and obtain a souvenir boarding pass to Mars
here:https://go.nasa.gov/Mars2020PassFor more information about the mission, go
to:https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/