Maxar Technologies has commended NASA on the administration’s launch of Perseverance Rover, which began its journey to Mars on an Atlas V rocket launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on July 30th.
“Congratulations on the successful launch to our friends and colleagues at NASA and its mission partners,” Megan Fitzgerald, Maxar’s senior vice president and general manager of Space Infrastructure said on Thursday.
Maxar built Perseverance’s Sample Handling Assembly (SHA) robotic arm and camera focus system for NASA’s mission. The company’s other Mars missions include the Spirit, Opportunity and Curiosity rovers, Phoenix and InSight landers.
The Perseverance mission will for signs of livable conditions and microbial life from the ancient past. Maxar’s SHA will manipulate, assess, encapsulate, store and release collected Martian soil and rock samples.
“We're looking forward to the exciting science that Perseverance will conduct with the help of the robotic arm we built," Fitzgerald added.
Maxar’s camera focus system will enable Perseverance to identify promising samples on the surface of Mars. Robotics will provide extreme accuracy under severe temperature variations and within dusty and dirty environments.
The company will also provide robotics to lunar missions. Maxar will work on the power and propulsion element and human landing system for NASA’s Artemis program. The company has initiated the build of a robotic arm called Sample Acquisition, Morphology Filtering and Probing of Lunar Regolith (SAMPLR) to acquire samples and determine the geotechnical properties of lunar regolith.
In addition, Maxar has begun to develop a spacecraft with three robotic arms for NASA called OSAM-1, which will demonstrate on-orbit servicing, assembly and manufacturing to enable spacecrafts to build and reconfigure themselves on-orbit and advance space telescopes.
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.
