NASA Highlights Earthbound Uses for Mars-Bound Perseverance Mission's Tech

NASA has highlighted three space-age technologies, developed as part of the Perseverance mission in the Mars Exploration Program, which are already paying dividends on Earth — including a bacteria-identifying laser sensor and a fabrication simulation system for PCB design.

Due to land on Mars in February, Perseverance takes with it a range of scientific payloads — but while those payloads are designed to increase our knowledge of the Red Planet, the technology behind them is also being used for a variety of tasks on Earth — starting with a novel corer drill which is being made available to geologists.

Designed by Honeybee Robotics, the coring system — fitted to Perseverance's robot arm — is designed to allow for automated core collection using "break-off tubes" which snap away cleanly once the sample is taken. The design, the company claims, is such that the risk of fragmenting the core sample is minimized — and the same technology is being used by geologists on Earth in the form of new drill bits for use with existing drill hardware.

A circuit board design for Perseverance's camera system, meanwhile, led Tempo Automation to develop a fabrication simulation system - a photo-realistic rendering of a design prior to production, which the company claims makes it considerably easier to spot design issues before entering mass production. "[The simulation] serves as a source of truth on the factory floor," co-founder Shashank Samala explains, "to communicate the designer’s intent. The first thing we look at is the simulation."

Another technology highlighted by NASA from the Perseverance mission is a handheld laser gun — built with peaceful intent by Photon Systems. A variant of the laser being sent to Mars as part of the Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman and Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals (SHERLOC) instrument, the handheld deep-UV spectroscope can identify organic molecules — to the point of identifying bacteria present in a would without physical interaction.

"NASA has been a constant companion in our journey to date, and the laser is only part of the story," co-founder William Hug says. "It's also the deep-UV Raman and fluorescence instruments we built for NASA and the Department of Defense over the years that are now providing breakthroughs for pharma, wastewater, and water quality in general, and now clinical testing for viruses."

NASA's full technology showcase is available on the official website.