NASA’s Perseverance rover landed in Jezero Crater on February 18, 2021.
This critical phase of the Mars2020 mission, called EDL (Entry Descent and Landing), went nominally smoothly, with the landing point only 1 km from the center of the uncertainty zone measuring about 8 km in radius.
Broadcast by NASA, the images, movies and sounds of this event have conquered the world.
The SuperCam instrument
The most emblematic part of the rover that gives it this particular appearance, with its head and its eye, is none other than the Franco-American-Spanish instrument, SuperCam, a kind of "Swiss army knife" allowing to analyze remotely the soil and rocks of Mars.
SuperCam consists of three parts :
- the Mast Unit (the "head"),
- the Body Unit housed in the rover body,
- and the calibration targets located on the back of the rover.
Realized within an international scientific consortium, under the responsibility of the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and the Institut de Recherche en Astrophysique et en Planétologie (IRAP, Observatoire Midi Pyrénées), this set corresponds respectively to the French, American and Spanish contributions
SuperCam includes five features
Three spectroscopic analysis techniques :
- LIBS spectroscopy, which relies on laser shots ;
- Raman spectroscopy, which also uses a laser ;
- Infrared reflectance spectroscopy which observes the solar flux scattered by rocks.
These three techniques share the same telescope (the famous "eye" of the rover).
| The infrared spectroscope, a LESIA realization The infrared spectroscope has been designed by LESIA (Laboratoire d’Études Spatiales et d’Instrumentation en Astrophysique) at Paris Observatory - PSL, in collaboration with LATMOS. It is the first near-infrared spectroscope to walk on the ground of Mars. Its realization is a feat : it weighs only 400 g. 
Le spectroscope infrarouge de SuperCam réalisé au LESIA
© LESIA / Observatoire de Paris - PSL
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Two other pieces of equipment complete the functionality of SuperCam :
- A high resolution color camera
- A microphone.
| The 3 spectroscopic techniques will allow the analysis of the atomic, molecular and mineralogical composition of the Martian surface. The microphone will record the sound of the wind and will also give information on the mechanical properties of the rocks which will be pulverized by the lasers. The high resolution color camera will allow to make images of the surface of the planet. |
SuperCam is a strategic instrument for the choice of targets to be studied, the collection of samples, and the selection of the sites that will host them.
Technical test phase
Since landing on February 18, 2021, engineers and researchers have been testing SuperCam’s five features during Martian days (called "Sols").
In particular, they have targeted a rock, named "Máaz," which means Mars in Navajo Indian.
It was shown to be a common basaltic rock on Mars thanks to the spectra obtained by :
- La spectroscopie laser LIBS (Sol 12) :
- et la spectroscopie infrarouge (Sol 11)
The Raman laser spectroscopy technique was tested on a diamond mineral calibration target (Sol 13).
SuperCam also recorded the sound of the Martian wind (Sol 4) and that produced by LIBS laser impacts (Sol 12).
For each test, contextual images were taken by the RMI color imager, validating the excellent optical quality of the telescope and the automatic focusing systems.
"Almost everything has been verified in 13 Sols (including 6 active Sols for the Mast Unit" said Pernelle Bernardi, CNRS research engineer at LESIA, Paris Observatory - PSL, and system engineer of the SuperCam camera. "So the instrument is fully functional, in the state we tested it at JPL, and its performance is excellent."
So Perseverance’s science program can begin with the goal of answering a most ambitious question : did Mars harbor life 3.5 billion years ago when it was covered in liquid water ?
Video
Explanatory animation video showing how SuperCam works