NASA Perseverance Mars Rover Lands Today!

[Gomez Adams]

Wow. 80 million.

 

[Zeedox]

Proof of concept to fly on another planet in low atmospheric conditions.

But it was also the ability to travel to Mars, withstand space radiation, the landing, the deployment, the martian night, and still work. Later hopefully proof of the ability to now 'notice something elsewhere' and be able to investigate at a longer distance. with an updated flight plan.

 

[Gomez Adams]

Not complaining. Just surprised.

 

[Zeedox]

Didn't mean to jump. So many naysayers don't realize there is no Plan(et) B.

 

[Hugo Stiglitz]

Space shit isn't cheap but it is when you consider the shit we spend money on. The average sports team will spend more than that on player salaries for one year. Mars drone or the Detroit Lions for one year?

Fucking no brainer man.

 

[Grimhogun]

NASA's Perseverance Mars Rover Extracts First Oxygen From Red Planet – NASA Mars Exploration

The milestone, which the MOXIE instrument achieved by converting carbon dioxide into oxygen, points the way to future human exploration of the Red Planet.

mars.nasa.gov

That's the coolest shit right there. If we can do that we can do anything. We can land anywhere once we know what's on it and make machines convert it to what we need. That right there makes whatever was spent on this mission worth it. Big time.

 

[Zeedox]

NASA's Ingenuity Helicopter Just Completed Its Second Flight on Mars

Following up on its first gravity-defying achievement on Mars, the helicopter Ingenuity took flight again this morning for a second, more complex aerial maneuver.

gizmodo.com

The second flight took place at around 5:30 a.m. EDT Thursday and should have lasted about 50 seconds. The goal was for Ingenuity to rise to about 16 feet off the ground, make a lateral move of about 7 feet, then turn and head back, alighting where it started.

 

[Gomez Adams]

Can you imagine a flying probe? That would be a game changer.

 

[Grimhogun]

Can you imagine a flying probe? That would be a game changer.

That would make picking landing spots a lot easier. You can land in any general area and then just fly where ever you wanted in the area.

 

[Zeedox]

In Third Flight, Ingenuity Goes Beyond All Tests Done on Earth

On Sunday, Ingenuity demonstrated once again that it was the little Mars helicopter that could. NASA reported that Ingenuity had successfully completed its third test flight earlier in the day, flying farther and faster than it ever had in tests conducted on Earth.

gizmodo.com

These Are Ingenuity's First Color In-Flight Photos of Mars

It goes without saying that NASA’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter has delighted the world in recent weeks, and it’s not done yet. NASA has released the first color aerial photos of the surface of Mars taken by Ingenuity in its successful second test flight earlier this week. They are quite a sight...

gizmodo.com

 

[Gomez Adams]

Very cool!

At first glance some of the rocks look like footprints in the dust.

 

[Zeedox]

Ingenuity's Fourth Mars Flight Sets New Airspeed and Distance Records

NASA’s experimental helicopter Ingenuity further pushed its bounds, traveling farther and at nearly double its previous speeds.

gizmodo.com

For Ingenuity’s fourth flight, the goal was to rise to 16 feet—an altitude it first reached in its second flight and a height chief engineer Bob Balaram described as the helicopter’s “sweet spot”—and take black-and-white images of the ground while flying some 436 feet downrange at 8 miles per hour. The chopper was then to perform a hover, photographing the Red Planet with its color camera, before returning to its starting point. This would double Ingenuity’s total attempted distance and increase its total time airborne from about 80 seconds to nearly two minutes.

In a NASA press conference held today in advance of the flight, Perseverance deputy project manager Jennifer Trosper confirmed that the rover team will attempt to collect audio of flight number four. The team also announced that, should the fifth and final planned flight be successful, Ingenuity will move on to a demonstration phase that will involve more complex maneuvers and aerial scouting of Martian regions beyond the helicopter’s current environs.