18 minutes ago, Christopher Low said:

I was being pedantic, Martin. Since Perseverance is still approaching aphelion (furthest distance from the Sun), it will be slowing down slightly as it makes its approach to Mars.

 

Oh right, yes, just a tad. Should be a few percent slower by now. Still at 47,500 MPH, so has slowed by just 2%. 

 

Edited February 18, 20215 yr by martin-w

Couple of hours to go space fans. NASA is live!

 

 

Mr Low is online at Space Command headquarters in Ulverston (aka. my bedroom)

Forest of Bowland International Space Headquarters standing by... 

Wow!

Wow!

Wow!

Great job JPL!!

I so want to live to witness Ingenuity flying on Mars...  

 

 

SWEET! Eagerly awaiting the footage in the coming months. 

Fantastic achievement. Perfect landing. That's the hard part, now the mission begins. Lots of science to do.

Worth remembering that Ingenuity is a concept demonstrator, it won't do any science, just test flights and some aerial photography. The autonomy will be impresive.

 

3 minutes ago, martin-w said:

it won't do any science, just test flights and some aerial photography

ON ANOTHER PLANET.. so that IS science in my book. Looking forward to it - Nice little coaxial chopper! 

1 minute ago, HighBypass said:

ON ANOTHER PLANET.. so that IS science in my book. Looking forward to it - Nice little coaxial chopper! 

 

Yep. And what it will do is learn to fly on another world with a thin atmosphere. And when human beings first set foot on the Red planet, vehicles like it will fly ahead and send back terrain data. Not to mention reaching places astronauts can't.

When human beings work together we can achieve wonderful things. 

It would be nice to see some aerial shots of Perseverance as it moves across the terrain.

Mark Watney would be proud! 👍

I guess NASA decided to "science the  "stuff" out of it"

Edited February 18, 20215 yr by charliearon
removed poorly disguised swear word

I guess there's a new "Martian" in town!👽

 

Quote

 

But the tiny Martian helicopter doesn't just have the ambitious task of flying on another world, "this little four-pounder has to survive the cold frigid nights of Mars," Aung said, adding that to "keep itself warm, it has to garner energy from the sun through its solar panels to charge its battery. It has to talk to the [International] Space Station. It has to do all of that."

 

A helicopter compared with, for example, rovers or future human explorers, could have "access to places you can't go otherwise," Ravich added, specifying that Martian lava tubes could potentially be more easily explored by a helicopter than other vehicles, and it could do that exploration fairly quickly, or at least quicker than robotic surface vehicles like rovers. 

Future crewed missions could also possibly be supported by vehicles like Ingenuity, he added. 

For example, "I'm out doing Mars operations as an astronaut, I forgot my wrench back home at the base. Maybe I can send a helicopter back to pick it up for me," he said. 

 

However helicopters are used on Mars in the future, Ingenuity's first flight is "a true extraterrestrial Wright Brothers moment," Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA associate administrator for science at NASA Headquarters, said during the news conference Feb. 16. 

 

 

Now the lava tubes are interesting, and suggested as an ideal base for future astronauts. 

Edited February 18, 20215 yr by martin-w

Woot!  Just wanna brag on my son a little.. he works at JPL and had a hand in this one!  A proud papa today 🙂