Rover Components

The large robotic arm on the front of the rover differs from Curiosity's:

Curiosity collected and studied samples collected onsite with its tools, using the rover's onboard laboratory. Perseverance collects rock cores for possible future advanced study by scientists back on Earth.

To accommodate the new functions and science tools for Perseverance, the rover has a larger "hand," or turret at the end of the robot arm. This turret has the coring drill, two science instruments, and a color camera for close-up surface inspection and "selfies" for engineering health checkups.

The workspace inside the rover body picks up, moves, and places drill bits and sample tubes within the Sample Caching System. New motors that drive these specialized movements were needed, so the Curiosity design was modified to handle the new Perseverance rover motor controller electronics.

The suspension system has three main components:

The rover's rocker-bogie suspension enables the rover to drive over obstacles (such as rocks) or through depressions as large as the rover's wheel (20.7 inches, or 52.5 centimeters). Each wheel has an aggressive tread with 48 grousers (or cleats), machined into its surface. The grousers give excellent traction when driving in soft sand and hard rocks.

By Martian vehicle standards, Perseverance is a standout. Its top speed on flat, hard ground is just under 0.1 mph (152 meters per hour). On Mars, it's about the journey and destinations--not the speed. The energy-efficient slow pace  consumes less than 200 watts, compared to nearly 150,000 watts for a 200-horsepower car. 

An Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) provides 3-axis information on its position, sothe rover can make precise vertical, horizontal, and side-to-side (yaw) movements. For navigation, the device supports safe traverses and estimates the rover's tilt.

The computers register temperature and power levels, and other features that keep the rover "alive." This main control loop constantly checks to ensure that the rover can communicate and keep from getting too hot or cold.  It checks and adjusts temperature controls, particularly in the rover body, then records power generation and storage data to decide which new activities to start or finish.  It then schedules and prepares for communication sessions with Earth or local Mars orbiters.

The flight team on Earth commands the rover to take pictures, drive, and operate the instruments. Perseverance generates and stores constant engineering, housekeeping, analysis telemetry, and event reports, and transmits the data  when the flight team asks for it. One of the two "computer brains is normally asleep, but can be awakened in case of problems.

A mast for the cameras to give the rover a human-scale view.

Several cameras for engineering and science tasks serve as eyes for driving, while others make science observations and help collect samples. robotic hands, arms and feet supply.

Several cameras recorded stunning full-color views during the Perseverance entry, descent, and landing, including videos that provided invaluable data to help the team address such questions as how precisely the rover touched down in the landing area, how the landing system moved during landing, how much sand and rock the retro rockets blew into the Martian atmosphere, and how the landing system moves as it descends. These new eyes and ears of Perseverance were assembled from easily available commercial hardware. The cameras and microphone were an optional add-on.

These cameras help human operators on Earth drive the rover more precisely, and better target the movements of the arm, drill, and other tools that get close to their targets. A much wider field-of-view allows for a much better view of the rover.

This is important for checking the health of rover parts and measuring changes in dust and sand quantities that may accumulate on rover surfaces. The cameras can take pictures while the rover is moving. These cameras share the same camera body, but use different lenses for each task.

SuperCam identifies minerals and rock compositions, and it seeks organic compounds that could be related to past life on Mars. It has a laser that can zap and study areas on a rock as small as the period at the end of this sentence. All from about 20 feet, or 7 meters away. Its camera and spectrometers then examine the rock's chemistry. The microphone on SuperCam gives scientists another "sense" with which to probe the rock targets they are studying.

When SuperCam fires a laser at a rock, a small amount of the rock vaporizes into a hot gas called "plasma", and heat and vibration creates a shockwave that makes a popping sound. SuperCam’s camera and spectrometer can "read" the hot gas to reveal the chemical makeup of the vaporized rock. At the same time, the microphone hears the staccato "pop" as the laser strikes rock several feet away from Perseverance.

The kind of "pop" it makes tells scientists about the mass and makeup of the rock. The intensity of the sound reveals the relative hardness of the rocks, which can tell us more about their geological context. For example, the hardness of the rock can help tell us whether the rock was formed in a lake or from wind-driven material, or how much pressure was involved in its formation. All without ever driving up and touching it.

SuperCam can listen for about 3.5 minutes at a time while performing science observations. This gives the rover the chance to hear the sounds of Mars, such as the high-pitched sound of sand grains over the surface, the wind whistling around the rover mast, and low-pitched howls of dust devils passing by. The microphone also records sounds of Perseverance using its arm, coring rocks, and the wheels crunching against the surface. The rover may hear the other instruments, internal mechanisms, and hear when we drop off the sample tubes. In some cases, sound can help the team diagnose the health of the rover's internal mechanisms or instruments.

The Perseverance rover’s Entry Descent and Landing (EDL) system is similar to Mars Science Laboratory/Curiosity, but it carries a microphone with which to record the sounds of descent. This microphone records audio as the Perseverance rover descends to the surface. We may hear the friction of the atmosphere, the winds, and the sounds of dust displaced as the rover lands.