Sierra Space’s Space Systems division traces its manufacturing heritage to Sierra Nevada Corporation’s work on NASA and U.S. Department of Defense missions including GPS III, Mars 2020, MAVEN, and Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS) spacecraft.
The Perseverance rover landed on Mars on February 18, 2021 as part of the Mars 2020 mission.
The ratio of Martian landing mass to trans-Mars injection mass in the Mars 2020 mission was 28%.
The Mars 2020 spacecraft weighed 3,649 kilograms and placed the Perseverance rover, which weighs 1,025 kilograms, onto the Martian surface.
The carrier vehicle will need to perform additional functions not required by the Mars 2020 cruise stage, such as aerobraking and decoupling multiple small probes.
Ingenuity was included on NASA’s Mars 2020 mission with the Perseverance rover as a technology demonstration planned for no more than five flights over one month.
The Department of Energy produced the heat source plutonium oxide required to fuel the radioisotope power system for NASA’s Mars 2020 mission.
Motiv Space Systems custom-engineered a six-degree-of-freedom force-torque sensor for NASA/JPL’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover that operates at -135°C.
Motiv Space Systems designed and built the seven-foot-long, five-joint robotic arm mounted at the front of NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover.
Masten Space Systems had a contract with NASA’s Flight Opportunities program to offer its vertical-takeoff-and-landing vehicles for researchers, including NASA, which used them to test technologies for the Mars 2020 lander.
NASA implemented the 2011 decadal survey flagship recommendation as the Mars 2020 mission, which placed the Perseverance rover on Mars to collect and cache samples.
The Atlas V 541 configuration has launched missions for the National Reconnaissance Office, carried the GOES-R and GOES-S satellites, and most recently launched the Mars 2020 mission with the Perseverance rover and Ingenuity helicopter.
Atlas V has supported GPS, SBIRS, and MUOS constellations and the Mars missions Curiosity, InSight, and Mars 2020.
The Mars 2020 mission addresses high-priority scientific goals, including the search for signs of past microbial life and the potential for life on Mars.
The Mars 2020 mission will test a method for producing oxygen from the Martian atmosphere and identify subsurface water resources.
Teledyne sensors power, sense, and help analyze the chemical composition of the Martian surface, minerals, and atmosphere during the Mars 2020 mission.
NASA based its decision to fly the Mars 2020 mission in late 2012 on the 2011 planetary science decadal survey.
By the time Mars 2020 launched in July 2020, NASA had refined the Mars sample-return architecture and arranged for the European Space Agency to lead development of the orbiter mission and provide the fetch rover.
JPL is building and will manage operations of the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate.
Thomas Zurbuchen previously estimated NASA’s cost for the later phases of Mars Sample Return would be $2,500,000,000 to $3 billion, excluding the $2,400,000,000 already spent on Mars 2020 and ESA’s estimated contribution of 1,500,000,000 EUR.