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PIA23469: A Light Touch Required for NASA's Mars 2020 Rover
An engineer working on NASA's Mars 2020 mission uses a solar intensity probe to measure and compare the amount of artificial sunlight that reaches different portions of the rover.
 Mission:  Mars 2020 Rover 
 Spacecraft:  Mars 2020 Rover
 Product Size:  6720 x 4678 pixels (w x h) 
 Produced By:  JPL 
 Full-Res TIFF:  PIA23469.tif (58.05 MB)
 Full-Res JPEG:  PIA23469.jpg (3.209 MB)  

Click on the image above to download a moderately sized image in JPEG format (possibly reduced in size from original)

Original Caption Released with Image:

An engineer working on NASA's Mars 2020 mission uses a solar intensity probe to measure and compare the amount of artificial sunlight that reaches different portions of the rover. To simulate the Sun's rays for the test, powerful xenon lamps several floors below the chamber were illuminated, their light directed onto a mirror at the top of the chamber and reflected down on the spacecraft. The data collected during this test will be used to confirm thermal models the team has generated regarding how the Sun's rays will interact with the 2020 rover while on the surface of Mars.

The image was taken on Oct. 14, 2019, in the Space Simulator Facility at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

JPL is building and will manage operations of the Mars 2020 rover for the NASA Science Mission Directorate at the agency's headquarters in Washington.

For more information about the mission, go to https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/.

Image Credit:
NASA/JPL-Caltech

Image Addition Date:
2019-10-30