Maxar Congratulates NASA on Launch of Perseverance Rover, Featuring Next-Generation Space Robotics
July 30 2020 - 1:45PM
Business Wire
Maxar contributes a sixth robotic arm for
Mars exploration
Maxar Technologies (NYSE:MAXR) (TSX:MAXR), a trusted partner and
innovator in Earth Intelligence and Space Infrastructure,
congratulates NASA on the successful launch of Perseverance Rover,
which began its journey to Mars on an Atlas V rocket launched from
Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida earlier today. Maxar
built Perseverance’s Sample Handling Assembly (SHA) robotic arm and
camera focus system, and it has more than 30 years of space
robotics heritage, including five robotic arms for previous Mars
missions – the Spirit, Opportunity and Curiosity rovers, and
Phoenix and InSight landers.
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As Perseverance explores, the Maxar-built
robotic arm will manipulate, assess, encapsulate, store and release
collected Martian soil and rock samples. Image: NASA
JPL-Caltech
When Perseverance lands on Mars in February 2021, it will begin
searching for signs of livable conditions and microbial life from
the ancient past. As Perseverance explores, the SHA will
manipulate, assess, encapsulate, store and release collected
Martian soil and rock samples. The camera focus system, part of the
SHERLOC instrument and WATSON imager, will support this effort by
enabling Perseverance to identify promising samples on the surface
of Mars. A future mission could potentially return collected
samples to Earth.
“Congratulations on the successful launch to our friends and
colleagues at NASA and its mission partners,” said Megan
Fitzgerald, Maxar’s Senior Vice President and General Manager of
Space Infrastructure. “We're looking forward to the exciting
science that Perseverance will conduct with the help of the robotic
arm we built."
Robotics have proven themselves as essential tools for a wide
variety of space missions. With the ability to provide extreme
accuracy under severe temperature variations and within dusty and
dirty environments, robotics can even lend a hand when something
unexpected happens, such as in the case of the German Aerospace
Center’s heat probe on NASA’s InSight lander.
“When InSight touched down on Mars in November 2018, it
activated its Maxar-built robotic arm to place sensitive
instruments onto the Martian surface,” said Lucy Condakchian,
Maxar’s General Manager of Robotics. “The robotic arm then went on
standby mode, its mission having been accomplished. Shortly after,
a heat probe designed to take Mars’ temperature got stuck while
attempting to burrow into the Martian soil. To remedy this, NASA
leveraged InSight’s robotic arm to push the mole underground – a
task that we didn’t design it for.”
Maxar is also extending its robotic leadership to the Moon. In
addition to the company’s work on the power and propulsion element
and human landing system for NASA’s Artemis program, Maxar is
building a robotic arm called Sample Acquisition, Morphology
Filtering and Probing of Lunar Regolith (SAMPLR) for NASA’s
Commercial Lunar Payload Services program. When SAMPLR lands on the
south pole of the Moon in 2022, it will be used to acquire samples
and determine the geotechnical properties of lunar regolith.
Maxar continues to lead and transform the market by fusing
reliable, cost-effective satellite platforms with best-in-class
robotics. The company is building a spacecraft with three robotic
arms for NASA called OSAM-1, which will demonstrate on-orbit
servicing, assembly and manufacturing. This technology promises to
enable spacecraft that can build and reconfigure themselves
on-orbit, advanced space telescopes and other infrastructure that
never could have been launched within the confines of existing
rocket fairings.
About Maxar
Maxar is a trusted partner and innovator in Earth Intelligence
and Space Infrastructure. We deliver disruptive value to government
and commercial customers to help them monitor, understand and
navigate our changing planet; deliver global broadband
communications; and explore and advance the use of space. Our
unique approach combines decades of deep mission understanding and
a proven commercial and defense foundation to deploy solutions and
deliver insights with unrivaled speed, scale and cost
effectiveness. Maxar’s 4,000 team members in 20 global locations
are inspired to harness the potential of space to help our
customers create a better world. Maxar trades on the New York Stock
Exchange and Toronto Stock Exchange as MAXR. For more information,
visit www.maxar.com.
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Investor Relations Contact: Jason Gursky Maxar VP
Investor Relations 1-303-684-2207 jason.gursky@maxar.com
Media Contact: Omar Mahmoud Maxar Media Relations
1-650-852-5388 omar.mahmoud@maxar.com
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