NASA spacecraft carrying Perseverance rover back online after technical issues

The National Aeronautics Space Agency (NASA) on July 30 informed that Mars 2020, the spaceship carrying the Perseverance rover is back online after facing some technical difficulties. According to Matt Wallace, the mission’s deputy project manager, the team controlling Mars 2020 has received telemetry (detailed spacecraft data) down from the spacecraft and has also been able to send commands up to the spacecraft. The team based at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California said that Mars 2020 is healthy and on its way to the Red Planet. 

Read: NASA's Mars 2020 Spaceship Facing Technical Issues, Team Running 'full Health Assessment'

As per NASA, Mars 2020 experienced two issues during the launch operations, first, the proximity of the spacecraft to Earth immediately after launch was saturating the ground station receivers of NASA’s Deep Space Network. "The Perseverance team worked through prepared mitigation strategies that included detuning the receivers and pointing the antennas slightly off-target from the spacecraft to bring the signal within an acceptable range," NASA said. This is not the first time that the agency has faced an issue like this one as in 2011 during the launch of Curiosity rover it experienced a similar problem. 

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"The second issue was a transient event involving temperature on the spacecraft. The mission uses a liquid freon loop to bring heat from the center of the spacecraft to radiators on the cruise stage (the part that helps fly the rover to Mars), which has a view to space. As the spacecraft entered into Earth’s shadow, the Sun was temporarily blocked by Earth, and the outlet temperature dropped. This caused the difference between the warm inlet and cooler outlet to increase. This transient differential tripped an alarm and caused the spacecraft to transition into the standby mode known as 'safe mode'," said NASA. 

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The Perseverance lifted off aboard a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V 541 rocket from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on July 30. It is expected to land on Mars on February 18 next year, where it will touch down on the surface of Jezero Crater. Perseverance rover will spend at least one Martian year, or approximately two Earth years, exploring the landing site region on the Red Planet.

Read: NASA's Mars 2020 Rover Perseverance Is 'go' For Launch On July 30