The Red Planet is in sight – scientific measurement instruments onboard Mars rover are ready for action

NASA’s Perseverance rover, launched in July 2020, is landing on Mars on the 18th February. The Perseverance is carrying several scientific instruments on board, including Finnish-made humidity and pressure instrumentation.  

All eyes will be on the sky with the Perseverance rover scheduled to land on Mars on 18th February. The Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI) has provided Perseverance with measurement instrumentation. Equipped with Vaisala’s sensors, FMI’s instrumentation will be used to provide accurate and reliable pressure and humidity measurements in the extreme conditions of Mars.

Landing on Mars will be a thrilling moment. The true test of success, however, will be the entire mission as the rover operates in the Red Planet’s extreme conditions. Perseverance will spend at least one Mars year, equal to around two Earth years, exploring the landing-site area.

The rover is expected to land on the ancient river delta in Jezero Crater, which is the optimal place to find traces of ancient life. To collect data and samples from the Red Planet, NASA is working together with a group of trusted scientific partners.

The FMI’s instrumentation is part of the Spanish-led consortium’s Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer (MEDA). The MEDA instrumentation kit is basically a Martian weather station that takes a wide range of atmospheric measurements: temperature, wind speed and direction, pressure, relative humidity, and the amount and size of dust particles. Vaisala’s pressure and humidity sensors onboard Perseverance are similar, but more advanced, to those sent to Mars on the Curiosity rover in 2012.

“The rover’s equipment needs to operate in the harsh Martian environment, with very low pressure conditions and cold temperatures, and it must be able to resist possible global dust storms. In addition to the environmental aspects and potential dangers of the landing itself, the distance between Mars and Earth makes the mission challenging. There is no one to fix the instrumentation if something goes wrong,” says Maria Genzer, Head of Planetary Research and Space Technology Group at FMI.

When landing, the Perseverance and Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) Curiosity will operate around 2000 km from each other. Together they will help create a small-scale atmospheric observation network on Mars. This is the first step towards the wider observation network being planned for Mars in the future.

“Mars and Earth are like rocky sisters. They both have seasonal variation, ice caps, similar declination of axis, length of day, and rocky consistency. Mars offers us a basic model of Earth – without vegetation, water, human life, cities, and other ‘noise’ we encounter on Earth,” says Genzer. “Interplanetary atmospheric research offers us tools to better understand our current habitat, and who knows what other findings there might be.”

“We are excited to provide our world-leading sensor technology to a Mars mission once again. Our accurate and durable HUMICAP® and BAROCAP® sensors will enable high-quality humidity and pressure data even on the Red Planet and lay the foundations for the atmospheric observation network on Mars,” says Samuli Hänninen, Vice President of Vaisala’s Products and Technologies.

The Mars 2020 mission is part of NASA’s Mars Exploration Program. The Perseverance rover is designed to better understand the environmental conditions and geology of Mars and seek signs of ancient life. The mission will collect and store a set of rock and soil samples that could be returned to Earth in the future.