Mars landing

I love this video frame capture. I can’t wait for the video.

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Magnificent!

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And then there is this:

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NASA is hosting a site with the pictures and vehicle tracking live as they receive them. You don’t have to wait for them to receive, review and release photos. Over the next few years it’s going to be ho-hum I bet. No one then will remember how leading edge that was when it began today.

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Oh how I wish I could write a completely accurate story starting with Y2K a bit of preamble, and then step by step week by week since, up to this week and then time travel it back to 1955 and try and sell it to a publisher.

They would not buy it as it would be too far out crazy but to end the story with Perseverance set down after tales of floods, forest fires, many hurricanes hitting the same spot of coast, pandemic, and all the mess with Texas, and all the politics . The success at Mars looks even crazier, But this time in a good way.

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I loved checking out the rover while it was being built. I pretty much had signed my kids and I up for every open jpl tour I could find…they fill quick, so we only got in like 4 times. But I forgot to ask if the treads of this one will also have Morse code in it. Anyone know?

Answered my own question, though not what I was expecting.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnet.com/google-amp/news/nasas-perseverance-rover-is-carrying-a-coded-message-to-mars/

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The JPL 2 hour press conference today was engineering heaven. Everyone should watch the videos of the decent. I queued up this link to the start of the video decent.

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First video and audio from the surface of Mars! 20 megapixel images - Science candy! :star_struck: :crazy_face:

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Wait until the helicopter flies!

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Loved seeing the video and “hearing” Mars yesterday. I cannot wait for the helicopter flights.

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THIS is spectacular. That is probably one of the coolest videos we’ve ever seen - we’re landing a CAR on Mars with a “sky crane” and we have the video of it in HD.

So so so amazing.

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Haven’t quite figured out how the copter charges with such a small solar panel footprint. Also, are the winds of Mars strong enough to make it topple when sitting on the ground? Or even a slightly off kilter landing? Will it be like a turtle on its back?

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I think it only has a 30 second or maybe 60 second flight time. Don’t need a huge solar array to charge a battery that small. :slight_smile:

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“winds of Mars strong enough to make it topple when sitting on the ground”
Wouldn’t that be an embarrassing oversight after all the thought that went into this mission so far lol.

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The copter isn’t part of any specific science package. It’s an optional payload not considered critical to the mission’s success. They’ll drop it and if it even flies once the objectives will have been achieved. Should it fall over when landing, yeah, there’s no easy way to set it upright again (though I suppose the rover might be able to rescue it if it’s landed someplace the rover can get close enough to). Though the odds are that if it topples on landing the blades will still be turning and it’ll “ball itself up”.

This is invariably what happens if I lay one of my radio control helicopters on its side when landing. The mechanics don’t usually survive unscathed and that heli goes back in my car to be repaired at a later date (it’s why I always bring a few different models to the flying field).

My racing quadcopters all have a feature called “turtle mode” that reverses the direction of the motors to flip the quad rightside up again if I crash it. Sometimes it can save me the trouble of having to walk out on the race course to find and flip it manually. But more often than not, the props are blocked by some random lump of dirt or tuft of grass and getting it rightside up again is a no go and I have to take a “sucker’s walk” to do it manually.

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It may not affect the overall mission but it still cost a lot of time and money to get it there. I think they probably did their homework on it as well.

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Of course. But it wasn’t a “reinvent the wheel” kind of challenge. It was more an effort to integrate and optimize existing technologies to meet the mission objective. You can buy a toy that uses the exact same mechanical design for less than $30, with the only difference being that you’re the pilot instead of an on-board computer system.

The hard part of these kinds of missions isn’t the basic design of the systems. The hard part is achieving the level of reliability necessary to survive the trip and still work when it gets there. Space is a very harsh environment for both mechanical and electrical systems. Ionizing radiation wreaks havoc with semiconductors and organics (like plastics). Parts can “wear out” and fail before they’ve actually even been used.

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They probably bring Hubble’s need for glasses themselves when talking about doing their homework, Just imagine having to send a repair crew to Mars?!

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To be honest I never claimed it was a “reinvent the wheel” technology. I merely stated they probably considered the effect any wind might have on its stability.

That and the whole pesky no atmosphere to speak of to provide lift :stuck_out_tongue:

I’m going to be impressed if it flies.

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