What can a NASA Mars rover teach us about the future development of astronaut spacesuits to Mars? This is what NASA’s Perseverance rover, which is currently exploring Jezero Crater on Mars, hopes to address with its five samples of spacesuit samples, known as swatches, that scientists are examining for wear-and-tear as they are exposed to the harsh surface radiation and elements of the Martian environment.
“This is one of the forward-looking aspects of the rover’s mission — not just thinking about its current science, but also about what comes next,” said Dr. Marc Fries, who is a planetary scientist Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science (ARES) Division at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, who developed the spacesuit samples used on the rover. “We’re preparing for people to eventually go and explore Mars.”
The five spacesuit samples consist of materials comprised of polycarbonate, vectran, ortho-fabric, Teflon, and coated Teflon, all of which are constantly exposed to the harsh Martian environment and are located at the end of Perseverance’s arm with the rover’s calibration target used for testing settings on one of the rover’s primary instruments, SHERLOC (Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals).
Graphic depicting spacesuit samples on existing spacesuits and where they are located on the Perseverance rover. (Credit: NASA)
Results of the scientific analysis regarding the condition of the samples are currently underway and the team anticipates publishing their results in a scientific paper in the future. This comes as NASA is preparing to end astronauts back to the Moon for the first time since 1972 with the Artemis program, along with landing the first woman and person of color on the lunar surface in history. The goal of the Artemis program will be to establish a long-term human presence on the Moon, along with testing technologies for future human missions to Mars as part of NASA’s Moon to Mars Architecture.
How will these swatches help prepare future astronauts to Mars in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science!
As always, keep doing science & keep looking up!
Sources: NASA JPL, NASA JPL (1), NASA, NASA (1)