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(upbeat digital music)

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- Hi, I'm Doctor Ellen Stofan,
also known as Doctor E.

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- And I'm Thomas Zurbuchen,
also known as Doctor Z.

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- And we're here for another
episode of E.Z. Science.

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Today, we're at the Steven
F. Udvar-Hazy Center

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in Chantilly, Virginia,
which is the other part

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of the National Air and Space Museum.

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And this is one of my
favorite places because

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we have things like the
Space Shuttle Discovery.

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But we also have this exhibit,

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which has one of my favorite Mars landers.

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Thomas, do you know which lander this is?

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- Yeah, it's Sojourner, you know,

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I remember it from The Martian.

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- Pathfinder, with a
little Sojourner rover

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landed in 1997 on the surface of Mars.

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The stuff you see laying
around the ground here

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is actually an airbag
that helped it land safely

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on the surface.

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It literally landed like a bouncing ball.

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The airbag deflated and
then it could deploy

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the solar panels and then
this little Sojourner Rover

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could come out and down onto the surface.

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- The most exciting part, right,

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is to actually land there

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with something that can roll off.

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- So this robotic mobility
really set a path,

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literally, with Pathfinder and Sojourner

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to how we explore Mars today.

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It was followed by the
Spirit and Opportunity Rover

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and the Curiosity Rover.

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Because we realized, to really
explore the geology of Mars,

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we needed to get out
there and move around.

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Just landing in one
spot wasn't good enough.

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- What's so amazing to
me is how light it is.

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It's only 23 pounds, this entire vehicle.

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- Yeah and actually, this
mission really gave us

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some breakthrough science about Mars.

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We had known from orbital data that Mars

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had these huge channels carved into it

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that we thought were carved by water.

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But Pathfinder and the Sojourner Rover

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really gave us the first evidence that

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the rocks at the surface
showed a lot of signs of

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having been laid down
and modified by water.

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That gives you the knowledge
that it wasn't just

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an instant in time of water,

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that the water had to have persisted

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for tens of millions of years,

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if not hundreds of millions of years.

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- And of course it's that very insight

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that really has clarified many of the

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historic questions about Mars.

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You know, how three and
a half billion years ago

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did they become so different...

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- Yeah.
- Than the earth.

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We're making a mission ready right now

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from 23 pounds or so of a rover

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to a little bit under
twenty-five hundred pounds,

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Mars 2020.

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- To me, 2020 is really
this important next step

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where Pathfinder and Sojourner,
Spirit and Opportunity,

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Curiosity, will try and
answer the question,

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could Mars have been habitable?

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Were there environments on the surface

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in which life could have evovled.

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We know the answer to that question

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because of all the work we've done

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with these previous missions,

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the answer to that question is yes.

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- We know that where we're going to land,

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at Jezero Crater, it's
basically a river delta

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next to some craters, right?

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An ancient river delta.

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That's a place that we would wanna be

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if we would want to look for extinct life

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if there's such a thing.

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- Mars 2020 is really
pushing that issue of

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can we find evidence of past life on Mars.

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- That's right.

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That's why the instrumentation
is way more complex

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than pretty much any of
the other instruments

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that we've had there.

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For example, we have
ways to really analyze

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in much more detail, even the morphology,

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the looks of samples before we put them

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in the sample flask, hopefully
to bring them back later on.

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- So if it launches in July of 2020,

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when does it actually get to Mars

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and when will we start
seeing that first data

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after the landing?

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- It's gonna be there in
February of the next year, of 21,

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coming down, and pretty much within days,

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we'll get the first data.

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What I'm really excited about is during

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entry, descent, and landing,

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we have way more cameras
than we've ever had.

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We're gonna see it go down,

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and we're gonna see the look up too.

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And of course we're also
bringing a small helicopter.

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- Sojourner was
record-breaking in it's time.

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This little rover that
was gonna explore Mars.

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Now you're moving beyond
surface exploration

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into aerial exploration

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with the helicopter
technology demonstration.

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- Exactly right.

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Close to 500 years after the death of

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Leonardo da Vinci who actually
made the first drawing

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of a helicopter,

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we're gonna bring such a
vehicle to a distant world.

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It will be the first controlled flight

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in a distant world.

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- And because 2020 is so much
heavier than Pathfinder here,

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we really have to use
a much more complicated

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landing system.

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So retrorockets fire,
parachutes come out to

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slow it down as it enters the atmosphere,

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but then the spacecraft
is actually lowered

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to the surface on what's
called the sky crane.

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And it's what the folks
out of JPL have termed,

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"Seven Minutes of Terror" as it starts

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from the top of the atmosphere

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all the way to the surface.

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- Exactly right.

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It's a very tough time to sit there

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until you hear from the
surface that, "I'm okay."

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Risky time.

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It's 50 percent or so likelihood
of success statistically

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for humanity to land or go to Mars.

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- Well, especially this summer,

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we're gonna come back
to you on E.Z. Science

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and talk more about Mars 2020

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as we get close to the launch.

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- Yeah, really appreciate that,

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what an exciting exhibit.

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An exhibit that points
forward to something

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that's going to happen.

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Thank you so much for
all of this discussion.

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- And thanks for coming and joining us