NASA Honours COVID-19 Healthcare Workers With A Special Plate On Mars Rover

NASA has been prepping for its next mission to Mars for quite a few years now, despite the US space agency witnessing a major roadblock in the form of the novel Coronavirus outbreak, as did the rest of the world.

During this pandemic, a set of heroes emerged, in the form of medical workers, saving lives across the planet. And just like all of us, NASA acknowledges that.

NASA

As a proof, NASA has attached a commemorative plate to its Perseverance rover, the main payload of the mission to Mars. The Mars rover will thus carry the first ever mark of heroic deeds on Earth, dedicated to the global medical workforce.

The NASA team that put together the Mars Perseverance Rover calls it the COVID-19 Perseverance plate. The 3x5 inch big black and white aluminium plate has been designed within the last couple of months.

It portrays the planet Earth on top of a staff with a serpent entwined on it, the global symbol of the medical community. Presumably the spacecraft¡¯s orbit is also depicted around the Earth, starting from Cape Canaveral, Florida, its launch site.

NASA salute to COVID-19 workers

NASA Perseverance Mars Rover (Image: NASA)

In an interaction with Associated Press, deputy project manager Matt Wallace of NASA¡¯s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California said that health care workers were ¡°on front lines keeping us safe¡± during launch preparations. ¡°They really inspired us, I think, through this period, and we hope that this plate and we hope that this mission in some small way can inspire them in return,¡± Wallace said.

Wallace further mentioned how the rover¡¯s name, Perseverance, has taken on a whole new meaning since the last few months. ¡®It¡¯s hard enough preparing a spacecraft for Mars, but doing it in the middle of a pandemic made it even harder¡¯, Wallace said as per the report.

NASA Mars rover 2020 launch

COVID-19 Perseverance plate (Image: JPL/ NASA)

The team is still hard at work to make the launch go as planned. For now, NASA is planning a July 20 launch for the program. It is important that the launch takes place before mid-August, as Earth and Mars will be in proper alignment till the time.

If NASA misses the deadline, the rover can¡¯t be launched until 2022. The AP report mentions another USD 500 million expense to the nearly USD 3 billion mission if there is such a delay.

Once launched, the payload is expected to reach Mars by next year. Among many of its mission targets, the Perseverance rover will look for past microbial life on Mars and sample rock and soil.