TEKS & Objectives
7.9. The student knows components of our solar system.
7.9.B identify the accommodations, considering the characteristics of our solar system, that enabled manned space exploration.
We will explore humanity’s quest to reach the stars.
I will construct and test a model space exploration vehicle.
On February 18, 2021, the United States landed a next-generation robot explorer on the surface of an alien world.
1. Mission overview:
- Mission Name: Mars 2020
- Rover Name: Perseverance
- Main Job: Seek signs of ancient life and collect samples of rock.
- Launch: July 30, 2020
- Landing: Feb. 18, 2021
- Landing Site: Jezero Crater, Mars
- Tech Demo: The Mars Helicopter (Ingenuity) is a technology demonstration, hitching a ride on the Perseverance rover. The Ingenuity will demonstrate that helicopters can produce lift in the thin Martian atmosphere.
2. Watch videos.
3. Review vocabulary and complete quiz.
Rover is an exploration vehicle designed to move across the surface of a planet or other rocky mass.
- Below (1st picture) are rover designs that have really been used. Wall-E (bottom picture) is a fictional rover.
- Think about how WALL-E’s design allowed him travel over the different surfaces on Earth.
- Can you find similarities between WALL-E and the real rovers?
Crater a large, bowl-shaped cavity (hole) in the ground or on the surface of a planet or moon, typically caused by the impact of a meteorite.
Perseverance rover is an SUV-sized Mars rover designed to explore Jezero Crater on Mars as part of NASA’s Mars 2020 mission. It is nicknamed Percy.
Ingenuity helicopter Ingenuity touched down on Mars with the Perseverance rover. It will help plan the best driving route for future Mars rovers. Making a helicopter work in the super thin, cold Martian atmosphere is a very difficult engineering challenge.
4. Watch the Perseverance Rover land.
- Other than a few selfies, no one was there to film the descent to the Martian surface.
- NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory released computer animations that show us what we would have seen if the landing had been filmed.
- Keep in mind, getting from orbit to the surface is extremely dangerous and difficult. Remeber the 7 Minute of Terror video from yesterday.
5. Test a Mars rover.
- Download detailed instructions from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory here.
- Try your rover over different “rocky” surfaces. Remember, it’s an all terrain vehicle!
- You can also check out the Ontario Science Center’s step-by-step video instructions for a nearly identical rover model below:
Alternate: Build and test a rover at PBS Kids.
6. Check out the design process for a model all-terrain vehicle.
VIDEO HERE
Speaking of space travel…
How will cowboys round up their cattle in space?
They’ll use a tractor beam
7. “Duplicate of Mars 2020”
