NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover entered „safe mode“ after a successful launch Thursday (July 30), but should recover, NASA says.
NASA is celebrating the launch of its most advanced Mars rover ever today (July 30), even as engineers tackle a glitch that left the spacecraft in a protective „safe mode“ shortly after liftoff.
The Mars 2020 Perseverance rover launched toward the Red Planet at 7:50 a.m. EDT (1150 GMT), riding an Atlas V rocket into space from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The rover experienced minor communications and temperature glitches after launch, but the issues aren’t expected to harm the mission as a whole, NASA officials said.
„It was an amazing launch, right on time,“ NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said during a post-launch news conference. „I think we’re in great shape. It was a great day for NASA.“
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Shortly after the conference, NASA confirmed that Perseverance slipped into „safe mode“ due to an unexpected temperature difference.
„Data indicate the spacecraft had entered a state known as safe mode, likely because a part of the spacecraft was a little colder than expected while Mars 2020 was in Earth’s shadow,“ NASA officials said in a statement. „All temperatures are now nominal and the spacecraft is out of Earth’s shadow.“
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During today’s post-launch news conference, the team received word that one issue, a lingering communications issue, was fixed. Within the first few hours after launch, although mission personnel could pick up the signal the spacecraft was sending home, it wasn’t being processed correctly.
However, that situation didn’t cause much concern, Matt Wallace, deputy project manager for Mars 2020 with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California, said during the briefing. The miscommunication was caused by the fact that NASA relies on a system called the Deep Space Network to communicate with Perseverance even soon after launch, when the spacecraft isn’t yet all that deep into space.
