Perseverance Parachute Codes Dare Mighty Things and Give JPL Coordinates

Summary: Perseverance parachute codes Dare Mighty Things and give JPL coordinates in a binary message that complements the rover's graphic and microchip cargo.

Image taken Feb. 18, 2021, during Perseverance rover's descent toward Mars' Jezero Crater, by a parachute-up-look camera has been annotated to reveal binary-coded messages designed by Mars 2020 Perseverance Systems Engineer Ian Clark; NASA ID PIA24431; image addition date 2021-02-23; image credit NASA, JPL-Caltech: May be used for any purpose without prior permission, via NASA JPL Photojournal

The Perseverance parachute codes Dare Might Things and give JPL coordinates in a binary-coded, international orange-and-neutral white message that complements the rover's cargo of information-laden graphics and microchips.

Mars 2020 Perseverance Systems Engineer Ian Clark designed the Perseverance parachute's binary code pattern. The parachute's two messages provide the coordinates of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and express JPL's motto.

The coordinates for NASA-owned and California Institute of Technology (Caltech)-managed research and development center are embedded in the parachute's outer band. JPL is located at 118 degrees 10 minutes 13 second north latitude and 34 degrees 11 minutes 58 seconds west longitude.

JPL's motto, Dare Mighty Things, spirals across three rings in the parachute's inner portion. The motto borrows a phrase from "The Strenuous Life," a speech given Monday, April 10, 1899, at the Hamilton Club in Chicago, Illinois, by Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt Jr. (Oct. 27, 1858-Jan. 6, 1919), then 33rd New York Governor (Jan. 1, 1899-Dec. 31, 1900). Approximately 22 and two-thirds months later, on March 4, 1901, Governor Roosevelt was sworn in as the 25th Vice President of the United States. The inspiring phrase, "dare mighty things," appeared in the fourth sentence of the speech's fourth paragraph:

"As it is with the individual, so it is with the nation. It is a base untruth to say that happy is the nation that has no history. Thrice happy is the nation that has a glorious history. Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat."

Car-sized Mars rover Perseverance, nicknamed Percy, carries three other informational messages. These messages are conveyed in graphics and microchips rather than in binary code.

Perseverance is loaded with Mastcam-Z, a pair of zoomable cameras. A small color-reference target, called "cal target," on the rover's deck functions as a reference marker for scientists to fine-tune Mastcam-Z's colors and settings. Seven icons and Perseverance's motto are interspersed between the target's three grayscale and five color swatches.

Color-reference target, called "cal target," enables calibrating Perseverance's pair of zoomable cameras, Mastcam-Z; icons (top, right to left): fern, Apatosaurus, man and woman with hands in greeting, Mars-bound rocket, inner solar system model, double-stranded DNA (Deoxyribonucleic acid) helix and cyanobacteria; Perseverance mission motto (bottom); NASA ID PIA24178; image credit NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS/University of Copenhagen: May be used for any purpose without prior permission, via NASA JPL Photojournal

The cal target's icons convey Perseverance's key objective of astrobiology, the study of the origin, evolution, distribution and future of life in the Universe. The seven icons represent, from the top, right to left: (1) a fern; (2) an Apatosaurus, a giant, herbivorous, sauropod ("lizard-footed") North American dinosaur from the Late Jurassic period (approximately 163.5 to 145 million years ago (Ma); (3) a man and woman with hands in greeting (which recalls plaques on Pioneer 10 and 11, and the Golden Record on Voyagers 1 and 2); (4) a rocket between the blue and red swatches, symbolizing travel from Earth (blue swatch) to Mars (red swatch); (5) a model of the inner solar system showing Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars orbiting the sun; (6) a double-stranded DN A (Deoxyribonucleic acid) helix; (7) cyanobacteria, earliest known form of life on Earth.

The words "Two Worlds, One Beginning" are printed at the bottom of the cal target, between the lime-green and blue swatches, which separate the words from the Mars-traveling rocket (to the right) and the model of the inner solar system (to the left). The Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Dec. 8, 2020, Photojournal entry, "PIA24178: Mastcam-Z's Calibration Target," explains that Perseverance's motto refers to "the idea of Earth and the Red Planet growing out of the same proto-stellar dust."

Perseverance also carries microchips of essays and names. The chip's essays come from the 155 finalists in NASA's “Name the Rover” contest. Springfield, Virginia, seventh-grader Alex Mather's essay suggesting Perseverance as the rover's name won against over 28,000 entries submitted from K-12 (kindergarten to 12th grade) in every state. The chip also contains 10,932,295 (10 million, nine hundred thirty-two thousand, two hundred ninety-five names submitted during NASA's "Send Your Name to Mars" campaign. NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory engineers stencilled the names via an electron beam (E-beam) onto three fingernail-sized chips, according to the NASA Science Mars Exploration Program's news release of Feb. 23, 2021.

The takeaways for Perseverance parachute codes that Dare Mighty Things and give JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) coordinates are that Mars 2020 Perseverance Systems Engineer Ian Clark designed the binary code for the messages embedded in a neutral white and international orange scheme; that "Dare Mighty Things" references JPL's motto, which comes from then-Governor of New York Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt's "The Strenuous Speech," given in Chicago, Illinois, on April 10, 1899; and that the rover also carries information conveyed via graphics and on a microchip.

Mars 2020 Perseverance Systems Engineer Ian Clark, who designed the binary code embedded in Perseverance's orange-and-white parachute, passes mission countdown clocks in the Perseverance offices at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California; image credit NASA/JPL-Caltech; date Tuesday, April 21, 2020: May be used for any purpose without prior permission, via NASA Science Mars Exploration Program

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

Image taken Feb. 18, 2021, during Perseverance rover's descent toward Mars' Jezero Crater, by a parachute-up-look camera has been annotated to reveal binary-coded messages designed by Mars 2020 Perseverance Systems Engineer Ian Clark; NASA ID PIA24431; image addition date 2021-02-23; image credit NASA, JPL-Caltech: May be used for any purpose without prior permission, via NASA JPL Photojournal @ https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA24431; Generally not subject to copyright in the United States; may use this material for educational or informational purposes, including photo collections, textbooks, public exhibits, computer graphical simulations, and Internet Web pages; general permission extends to personal Web pages, via NASA Image and Video Library @ https://images.nasa.gov/details-PIA24431

Color-reference target, called "cal target," enables calibrating Perseverance's pair of zoomable cameras, Mastcam-Z; icons (top, right to left): fern, Apatosaurus, man and woman with hands in greeting, Mars-bound rocket, inner solar system model, double-stranded DNA (Deoxyribonucleic acid) helix and cyanobacteria; Perseverance mission motto (bottom); NASA ID PIA24178; image credit NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS/University of Copenhagen: May be used for any purpose without prior permission, via NASA JPL Photojournal @ https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA24178; Generally not subject to copyright in the United States; may use this material for educational or informational purposes, including photo collections, textbooks, public exhibits, computer graphical simulations, and Internet Web pages; general permission extends to personal Web pages, via NASA Image and Video Library @ https://images.nasa.gov/details-PIA24178

Mars 2020 Perseverance Systems Engineer Ian Clark, who designed the binary code embedded in Perseverance's orange-and-white parachute, passes mission countdown clocks in the Perseverance offices at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California; image credit NASA/JPL-Caltech; date Tuesday, April 21, 2020: May be used for any purpose without prior permission, via NASA Science Mars Exploration Program @ https://mars.nasa.gov/resources/24927/countdown-to-launch/

For further information:

Carter, Jamie. "Mars Messages: Why NASA’s ‘Secret Code’ In The Perseverance Rover’s Supersonic Parachute Is Just The Start." Forbes. Feb. 25, 2021
Available @ https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamiecartereurope/2021/02/25/mars-messages-why-nasas-secret-code-in-the-perseverance-rovers-supersonic-parachute-is-just-the-start/?sh=3649ad535d75

Greicius, Tony. "Mastcam-Z Looks at Its Calibration Target." NASA > Images > JPL > Perseverance Mars Rover. Feb. 22, 2021.
Available @ https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/jpl/mastcam-z-looks-at-its-calibration-target

Hautaluoma, Grey; and Alana Johnson. "How NASA's Perseverance Mars Team Adjusted to Work in the Time of Coronavirus." NASA Science Mars Exploration Program > News. April 21, 2020.
Available @ https://mars.nasa.gov/news/8654/how-nasas-perseverance-mars-team-adjusted-to-work-in-the-time-of-coronavirus/

Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "PIA24178: Mastcam-Z's Calibration Target." PhotoJournal. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS/University of Copenhagen. Image Addition Date: 2020-12-08.
Available @ https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA24178

Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "PIA24431: Mars Decoder Ring." PhotoJournal. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech. Image Addition Date: 2021-02-23.
Available @ https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA24431

NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory)-Caltech. "Mars Decoder Ring." NASA Image and Video Library. NASA ID: PIA24431. D created 2021-02-23.
Available @ https://images.nasa.gov/details-PIA24431

NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory)-Caltech. "Mastcam-Z's Calibration Target." NASA Image and Video Library. NASA ID: PIA24178. Secondary Creator Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS/University of Copenhagen. Date created 2021-02-23.
Available @ https://images.nasa.gov/details-PIA24178

NASA Mars. "The Mars 2020 Rover Has a Name!" NASA Science Mars Exploration Program > NASA Science Mars 2020 Mission Perseverance Rover. Available @ https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/participate/name-the-rover/

NASA Mars. "Nearly 11 Million Names of Earthlings are on Mars Perseverance." NASA Science Mars Exploration Program > News & Events > News. Feb. 23, 2021.
Available @ https://mars.nasa.gov/news/8872/nearly-11-million-names-of-earthlings-are-on-mars-perseverance/

NASA Mars. "Send Your Name to Mars." NASA Mars Exploration Program.
Available @ https://mars.nasa.gov/participate/send-your-name/mars2020/

Roosevelt, Theodore, Jr. "The Strenuous Life." Speech before the Hamilton Club, Chicago, April 10, 1899.
Available via Wikisource @ https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Strenuous_Life