1 00:00:02,720 --> 00:00:04,799 Hii my name is Michelle Colizzi. I just 2 00:00:04,799 --> 00:00:07,040 finished building a spacecraft that's going to Mars. 3 00:00:07,040 --> 00:00:17,920 This is Ask NASA and I'm here to answer your questions. 4 00:00:21,600 --> 00:00:26,160 As humans we're naturally curious right? We're natural born explorers it's 5 00:00:26,160 --> 00:00:30,800 in our curiosity that we want to explore outside of Earth and explore Mars, 6 00:00:30,800 --> 00:00:34,079 understand what type of resources they have, 7 00:00:34,079 --> 00:00:39,120 can it sustain human life. Personally my biggest worry is just making sure that 8 00:00:39,120 --> 00:00:43,520 the pieces that I designed and i worked on work. 9 00:00:43,520 --> 00:00:47,360 We've gone through extensive testing and it's become your child and you just want 10 00:00:47,360 --> 00:00:52,640 to see it do its best when it gets to to perform on the surface of Mars. 11 00:00:52,640 --> 00:00:55,840 So there are a lot of really cool instruments on board the Perseverance 12 00:00:55,840 --> 00:00:58,399 rover. One in particular that happens to be my 13 00:00:58,399 --> 00:01:03,359 favorite is MOXIE. and the purpose of MOXIE is to try to 14 00:01:03,359 --> 00:01:07,920 take some of the Mars atmosphere and convert that into oxygen and the 15 00:01:07,920 --> 00:01:13,200 oxygen - the pure oxygen - can be used to generate fuel for a return flight 16 00:01:13,200 --> 00:01:17,840 home in the future from Mars, or could also be utilized for humans 17 00:01:17,840 --> 00:01:21,840 breathing air when we do have manned missions. 18 00:01:23,280 --> 00:01:26,799 I think the biggest challenge is making sure that you're 19 00:01:26,799 --> 00:01:31,680 setting up your tests to represent the environments that they're 20 00:01:31,680 --> 00:01:34,560 going to see. There's a very large temperature gradient 21 00:01:34,560 --> 00:01:39,439 from the floor up to the top of the rover. We have a chamber that simulates 22 00:01:39,439 --> 00:01:44,320 the heat and the radiation from the Sun so we need to make sure that all the 23 00:01:44,320 --> 00:01:46,320 hardware and components that are on there 24 00:01:46,320 --> 00:01:49,680 can withstand a wide range of temperatures. We get 25 00:01:49,680 --> 00:01:53,360 wind on Mars which blows up dust so we veered away 26 00:01:53,360 --> 00:01:57,920 from solar panels to power the rover. And the atmosphere that we'll see 27 00:01:57,920 --> 00:02:03,439 on the journey to and on another planet are very important. 28 00:02:04,079 --> 00:02:08,800 I joined the ATLO team which is assembly test and launch operations 29 00:02:08,800 --> 00:02:12,800 and that's where all the piece parts of the hardware that all the individual 30 00:02:12,800 --> 00:02:18,319 engineers have designed built and tested come together. And we as the ATLO team 31 00:02:18,319 --> 00:02:23,040 put all those pieces together to build the spacecraft. I was responsible for 32 00:02:23,040 --> 00:02:26,560 building the aeroshell, and the aeroshell consists of a back 33 00:02:26,560 --> 00:02:29,680 shell on the top and a heat shield on the bottom and 34 00:02:29,680 --> 00:02:34,840 that's the capsule that the rover and the descent stage sit 35 00:02:34,840 --> 00:02:37,840 inside. 36 00:02:40,959 --> 00:02:44,879 The Ingenuity is mainly a proof of concept to test new technology on the 37 00:02:44,879 --> 00:02:48,239 surface of Mars, right, we've never flown anything on 38 00:02:48,239 --> 00:02:50,080 another planet before, so this will be the first 39 00:02:50,080 --> 00:02:53,680 time that we do. And it's also going to give us some really cool aerial 40 00:02:53,680 --> 00:02:57,840 shots from up above and allow us to see the terrain ahead 41 00:02:57,840 --> 00:03:01,519 for the Perseverance rover. So the Ingenuity helicopter 42 00:03:01,519 --> 00:03:04,640 is actually stored at the bottom of the rover underneath, 43 00:03:04,640 --> 00:03:10,800 we have what's called a belly pan that ejects with pyrotechnic devices 44 00:03:10,800 --> 00:03:16,879 to then allow the helicopter to drop onto the surface and stand up once the 45 00:03:16,879 --> 00:03:22,319 rover drives away. And then it'll take flight from there 46 00:03:22,319 --> 00:03:26,400 So they're more like robot brothers, but they serve 47 00:03:26,400 --> 00:03:30,879 - they're both stationed on two totally different 48 00:03:30,879 --> 00:03:35,040 locations on the surface of Mars and as slow as they go, 49 00:03:35,040 --> 00:03:38,239 i don't think it's very likely that they'll ever meet up. 50 00:03:38,239 --> 00:03:42,080 But they both have very important but different 51 00:03:42,080 --> 00:03:46,000 jobs to do on the surface of Mars. So Perseverance has 52 00:03:46,000 --> 00:03:50,159 this really cool robotic arm and at the the end of the robotic arm it has a 53 00:03:50,159 --> 00:03:53,360 drill and a bunch of different drill bits, so 54 00:03:53,360 --> 00:03:58,159 based on the type of dirt or rock that we want to 55 00:03:58,159 --> 00:04:01,360 to take samples of, it selects the right bit. 56 00:04:01,360 --> 00:04:04,799 And then it starts drilling these these samples that will be, 57 00:04:04,799 --> 00:04:08,080 we call them core samples. So they're these little slender 58 00:04:08,080 --> 00:04:11,200 core samples from the dirt that get put 59 00:04:11,200 --> 00:04:17,600 into a test tube looking metallic tube, and then sealed airtight 60 00:04:17,600 --> 00:04:22,000 so that we can preserve the sample for when we do come and pick them back 61 00:04:22,000 --> 00:04:28,000 up. I think the name Perseverance has been very suiting 62 00:04:28,000 --> 00:04:31,040 and has been - has hit really close to home for me, 63 00:04:31,040 --> 00:04:34,640 because everyone who worked on it did have to persevere 64 00:04:34,640 --> 00:04:40,160 in order to make this mission a reality. This year there's support from 65 00:04:40,160 --> 00:04:42,400 other countries who help build instruments, 66 00:04:42,400 --> 00:04:46,400 from colleges from we have interns and co-ops we have scientists we have 67 00:04:46,400 --> 00:04:49,759 engineers. I mean there's so many people who come together 68 00:04:49,759 --> 00:04:54,639 to make a mission like this happen. I'm honored to be a part of this team 69 00:04:54,639 --> 00:04:57,280 who have built something absolutely amazing, 70 00:04:57,280 --> 00:05:01,840 and that's traveling to another planet. Like how cool is that?