From Minnedosa to Mars

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This article was published 24/02/2021 (2066 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

MINNEDOSA is a long way from Mars, but a company based in the town played a role in getting the Mars Perseverance rover safely onto the red planet.

Canadian Photonic Labs supplied its Mega Speed high-speed cameras and software to help NASA test the landing decelerator and parachute system that was eventually used to get rovers onto the surface of Mars in one piece, said president Mark Wahoski.

The cameras were mounted on a rocket sled used to test the decelerator. They captured images that are too fast for the human eye to see, he said.

Personnel were at at the Supersonic Naval Ordnance Research Track in California to help set up the cameras and provide technical support.

“When you’re there, it’s an exhilarating thing because you’re off on the control where the command post is. It’s quite a process,” said Wahoski.

The Mars rover, which was launched on July 30, is the most sophisticated rover to land on the planet.

“It will collect carefully selected and documented rock and sediment samples for future return to Earth, search for signs of ancient microbial life, characterize the planet’s geology and climate, and pave the way for human exploration beyond the moon,” NASA says about the rover.

It’s a long journey from the test site on Earth to the red rock surface of Mars. Wahoski said testing started around 2011, but the Perseverance rover didn’t touch down until approximately a decade later, on Feb. 18.

“It’s pretty rewarding because there’s times where… there’s really a lot of pressure on you at the time when you’re down there, and it’s all your equipment that’s capturing all of this,” he said.

“That part is pretty stressful, but now it seems like “Geez, did we do that?’ and it’s pretty good for us and the guys who helped do that.”

Getting a robotic rover to Mars is a huge undertaking, Wahoski said, and his Minnedosa company was able to play a role in it.

“Everything is travelling at about 20 times the speed of a bullet and you can’t steer… you have to point to something (during the launch) that’s going to be where it is in nine months’ time. It’s amazing,” he said.

Many probes don’t make it to Mars, he said, so it’s a big deal when one lands successfully.

“It’s a long process, it’s not just come in and do one driver’s test, kind of thing. It’s over the years and sometimes it goes, sometimes it doesn’t, but when you think about what they did, we just had one part, one small part,” he said.

Asked why NASA chose to go with Canadian Photonic Labs, Wahoski said, “They had other options and they had other companies trying to do it — we just had the best solution.”

The firm has other aerospace projects in the works, Wahoski said. The company is currently helping Space X, Elon Musk’s spacecraft company, test part of its Star Link satellite internet system.

— Brandon Sun