NASA’s Mars 2020 Got Its Robotic Arm, Getting Closer To Completion

NASA’s Mars 2020 Got Its Robotic Arm, Getting Closer To Completion
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According to a statement of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, the space agency’s engineers have assembled the primary robotic arm on the Mars 2020 rover on Friday. The main arm contains five electrical engines and five joints, also called shoulder azimuth joint, shoulder elevation joint, elbow joint, wrist joint, and turret joint.​

The release also said that a smaller arm to manage Mars samples will be assembled inside the probe as well. With the size of 2.1 meters long, the arm will enable the rover to function as a human geologist by holding and utilizing science instruments with its turret, which is, in essence, its hand, JPL states.

Ryan van Schilifgaarde, a support engineer at JPL for Mars 2020 assembly, said that the installation team that assembled the arm on the rover should be praised as they did such an incredibly complex process look easy. More of the same will happen when the arm will get its turret in the next couple of weeks, Ryan van Schilifgaarde stated.

NASA’s Mars 2020 Got Its Robotic Arm

The Mars 2020 rover’s turret will contain high-definition cameras, science tools, a percussive drill, and a coring mechanism. These instruments will be utilized to examine and gather samples of rock and soil from the Red Planet’s surface, which will be temporarily stored on the surface of Mars for return to Earth in a future mission, according to JPL.

Mars 2020 is set to take off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida next year in July. The rover will land at Jezero Crater on Mars on February the 18th, 2021.

Responsible with taking astronauts to the Moon by the year 2024, NASA’s Artemis lunar mission plans will build a sustained human habitat on and around the Moon by the year 2028. The American space agency states it will utilize what they learn on the Moon to get ready to send astronauts to Mars.


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Jeffrey likes to write about health and fitness topics, being a champion fitness instructor in the past.

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