How NASA uses this Calif. national park to prepare for Mars missions
Spectacular craters, a giant valley and dunes illuminated with red and pink hues pepper the landscape. Extreme weather brings icy cold and dangerously hot temperatures. This foreign world is no place for humans.
This isn’t Mars but Death Valley National Park, one of the hottest and driest places in North America. The two are so strikingly similar that NASA has been using the unique California national park as a stand-in for the red planet for decades, most recently as part of the preparation for the successful Perseverance rover landing in 2021.
NASA isn’t done experimenting in Death Valley, either. Leading researchers plan to go back soon.
Researchers tested key aspects of the Mars rovers’ navigation systems in Death Valley. Here, NASA’s Perseverance rover lands on Mars on Feb. 18, 2021.
Courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech
NASA’s work in Death Valley dates back to the 1970s and the groundbreaking Viking Project, the first U.S. mission to land a spacecraft safely on the surface of Mars. “Some of the first pictures that the world ever saw of Mars came from [Viking],” Allen Chen of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory told SFGATE in a phone interview. The national park is about a five-hour trip from the JPL office in Pasadena.
Chen led the Mars landings of both the Curiosity and Perseverance rovers and has been part of several visits to Death Valley throughout his 20-year tenure with NASA.
“It’s a rite of passage for people who work on Mars to find your way out to Death Valley for some reason,” he explained. “Whether it’s scientists who work on rocks or whether it’s more on the engineering side or if you’re someone like me who worries about landing things, once you get past those phases, it’s about getting out there and doing hardcore testing to prove to yourself that it will actually work when you land on Mars.”
Work it did. Both rovers have been roaming the Martian surface since their landings, beaming back incredible images as they carry out their missions.
But why Death Valley?
The national park that’s been used for scenes in “Star Wars” and “The Twilight Zone” is a “living laboratory” of sorts because of its strange and dynamic features, according to Death Valley National Park ranger Matthew Lamar.
“Here in Death Valley, we have a unique ability to help understand other worlds,” he said. The topography of the below-sea-level basin provides an excellent canvas for researchers, scientists and other groups. “Because it is so hot and so dry, we lack things like vegetation. When you come here, you see that geology exposed. That rocky terrain is in a lot of areas. Because of the volcanic activity here in Death Valley, it can be compared to the surface of Mars.”
The comparisons don’t stop at Mars. Icy worlds like the distant moons of Jupiter and Saturn could also someday see spacecraft that have been tested, demoed and rehearsed in Death Valley’s salt flats and at its towering Telescope Peak, Lamar added.
NASA tested the Perseverance rover’s Terrain Relative Navigation system in Death Valley.
Screenshot via NASA/JPL-CaltechChen pointed to the park’s “variety” as the main reason researchers go back again and again. “To me, what this speaks to is the link between our planets,” he said. “In the grand scheme of the cosmos, we’ve developed in very similar ways. We’re right next to each other. That’s kind of cool we can see a link between us and another planet.”
That link includes the park’s sand dunes and the rim of the 3,000-square-mile valley. Chen and his team used both locations to test the Perseverance rover’s Terrain Relative Navigation system in the years leading up to launch.
“[We flew over] the dunes to try to see what it could do on repeating terrain,” he explained. “We flew it to the edge of the valley as well so it could be challenged by terrain relief. We wanted to make sure we put the Terrain Relative Navigation system through its paces.”
As Chen described, testing followed by more testing is incredibly important, as manual commands can take as long as 20 minutes to reach the rover from NASA ground control through space. That means the craft must be able to work on its own when it comes to actually landing on Mars. “We have to make sure that everything can happen without us intervening,” he said. “We have to put the vehicle through everything that’s possible it could see here on Earth.”
There’s no better place to do so than the appropriately named Mars Hill, the site of countless NASA demonstrations over the years. The hill in the southeastern part of Death Valley is so much like the surface of Mars that many researchers, including Chen, stay in nearby Furnace Creek when they’re visiting for experiments.
The rover Curiosity was first tested at Mars Hill because of its similarity to the Martian surface, Chen said. Curiosity later landed on Mars to worldwide acclaim in August 2012 and is still there today.
Curiosity took a photo of Paraitepuy Pass on Mars on Sept. 9, 2015.
As Death Valley continues to surprise and enchant visitors with differing types of landscape, Chen said his team is testing equipment at park locations beyond Mars Hill as scientists aim to break barriers and realize new discoveries on the red planet.
“We’re really looking for different places to go on Mars now, which means we’re looking for different places in Death Valley. We’re looking for water [on Mars], the building blocks of life in terms of organics, and finally with sample return. We’ve moved on from looking for places that are volcanic because those aren’t good places to find past life. We’ve kind of moved on from that kind of location.”
Outside Death Valley, Chen pointed to the vast Mojave Desert as another challenging landscape NASA is exploring for future use as it looks for more “bland” terrain and specific types of craters.
“Southern California, and California in general, has a whole bunch of terrain that is very Mars-like,” he added. “The fact that it’s in our backyard is extremely convenient.”
Test rover Scarecrow drives on sand dunes at the Dumont Dunes just outside Death Valley National Park.
Courtesy of NASA/JPL-CaltechIt’s not only NASA using Death Valley. Academic researchers and groups like the SETI Institute — the acronym stands for “the search for extraterrestrial intelligence” — are often spotted at the park. While there is no observatory at Death Valley, the clarity with which you can see the night sky is simply stunning. That’s why it’s been recognized as an International Dark Sky Park, one of several in the U.S. “possessing an exceptional or distinguished quality of starry nights.”
As far as future plans, Chen told SFGATE that NASA will “definitely” be back at Death Valley many more times. “We’re always trying to push the envelope,” he said.
Spectacular craters, a giant valley and dunes illuminated with red and pink hues pepper the landscape. Extreme weather brings icy cold and dangerously hot temperatures. This foreign world is no place for humans.
This isn’t Mars but Death Valley National Park, one of the hottest and driest places in North America. The two are so strikingly similar that NASA has been using the unique California national park as a stand-in for the red planet for decades, most recently as part of the preparation for the successful Perseverance rover landing in 2021.
NASA isn’t done experimenting in Death Valley, either. Leading researchers plan to go back soon.
Researchers tested key aspects of the Mars rovers’ navigation systems in Death Valley. Here, NASA’s Perseverance rover lands on Mars on Feb. 18, 2021.
NASA’s work in Death Valley dates back to the 1970s and the groundbreaking Viking Project, the first U.S. mission to land a spacecraft safely on the surface of Mars. “Some of the first pictures that the world ever saw of Mars came from [Viking],” Allen Chen of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory told SFGATE in a phone interview. The national park is about a five-hour trip from the JPL office in Pasadena.
Chen led the Mars landings of both the Curiosity and Perseverance rovers and has been part of several visits to Death Valley throughout his 20-year tenure with NASA.
“It’s a rite of passage for people who work on Mars to find your way out to Death Valley for some reason,” he explained. “Whether it’s scientists who work on rocks or whether it’s more on the engineering side or if you’re someone like me who worries about landing things, once you get past those phases, it’s about getting out there and doing hardcore testing to prove to yourself that it will actually work when you land on Mars.”
Work it did. Both rovers have been roaming the Martian surface since their landings, beaming back incredible images as they carry out their missions.
But why Death Valley?
The national park that’s been used for scenes in “Star Wars” and “The Twilight Zone” is a “living laboratory” of sorts because of its strange and dynamic features, according to Death Valley National Park ranger Matthew Lamar.
“Here in Death Valley, we have a unique ability to help understand other worlds,” he said. The topography of the below-sea-level basin provides an excellent canvas for researchers, scientists and other groups. “Because it is so hot and so dry, we lack things like vegetation. When you come here, you see that geology exposed. That rocky terrain is in a lot of areas. Because of the volcanic activity here in Death Valley, it can be compared to the surface of Mars.”
The comparisons don’t stop at Mars. Icy worlds like the distant moons of Jupiter and Saturn could also someday see spacecraft that have been tested, demoed and rehearsed in Death Valley’s salt flats and at its towering Telescope Peak, Lamar added.
NASA tested the Perseverance rover’s Terrain Relative Navigation system in Death Valley.
Chen pointed to the park’s “variety” as the main reason researchers go back again and again. “To me, what this speaks to is the link between our planets,” he said. “In the grand scheme of the cosmos, we’ve developed in very similar ways. We’re right next to each other. That’s kind of cool we can see a link between us and another planet.”
That link includes the park’s sand dunes and the rim of the 3,000-square-mile valley. Chen and his team used both locations to test the Perseverance rover’s Terrain Relative Navigation system in the years leading up to launch.
“[We flew over] the dunes to try to see what it could do on repeating terrain,” he explained. “We flew it to the edge of the valley as well so it could be challenged by terrain relief. We wanted to make sure we put the Terrain Relative Navigation system through its paces.”
As Chen described, testing followed by more testing is incredibly important, as manual commands can take as long as 20 minutes to reach the rover from NASA ground control through space. That means the craft must be able to work on its own when it comes to actually landing on Mars. “We have to make sure that everything can happen without us intervening,” he said. “We have to put the vehicle through everything that’s possible it could see here on Earth.”
There’s no better place to do so than the appropriately named Mars Hill, the site of countless NASA demonstrations over the years. The hill in the southeastern part of Death Valley is so much like the surface of Mars that many researchers, including Chen, stay in nearby Furnace Creek when they’re visiting for experiments.
The rover Curiosity was first tested at Mars Hill because of its similarity to the Martian surface, Chen said. Curiosity later landed on Mars to worldwide acclaim in August 2012 and is still there today.
Curiosity took a photo of Paraitepuy Pass on Mars on Sept. 9, 2015.
Courtesy of NASA/JPL-CaltechAs Death Valley continues to surprise and enchant visitors with differing types of landscape, Chen said his team is testing equipment at park locations beyond Mars Hill as scientists aim to break barriers and realize new discoveries on the red planet.
“We’re really looking for different places to go on Mars now, which means we’re looking for different places in Death Valley. We’re looking for water [on Mars], the building blocks of life in terms of organics, and finally with sample return. We’ve moved on from looking for places that are volcanic because those aren’t good places to find past life. We’ve kind of moved on from that kind of location.”
Outside Death Valley, Chen pointed to the vast Mojave Desert as another challenging landscape NASA is exploring for future use as it looks for more “bland” terrain and specific types of craters.
“Southern California, and California in general, has a whole bunch of terrain that is very Mars-like,” he added. “The fact that it’s in our backyard is extremely convenient.”
Test rover Scarecrow drives on sand dunes at the Dumont Dunes just outside Death Valley National Park.
Courtesy of NASA/JPL-CaltechIt’s not only NASA using Death Valley. Academic researchers and groups like the SETI Institute — the acronym stands for “the search for extraterrestrial intelligence” — are often spotted at the park. While there is no observatory at Death Valley, the clarity with which you can see the night sky is simply stunning. That’s why it’s been recognized as an International Dark Sky Park, one of several in the U.S. “possessing an exceptional or distinguished quality of starry nights.”
As far as future plans, Chen told SFGATE that NASA will “definitely” be back at Death Valley many more times. “We’re always trying to push the envelope,” he said.
