NASA Lands the Perseverance Rover on Mars by captaincrunch

GENERAL DISCUSSIONS

NASA Lands the Perseverance Rover on Mars

POSTED BY: CAPTAINCRUNCH
UPDATED: Tuesday, December 7, 2021 20:14
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Thursday, February 18, 2021 4:11 PM

... stay crunchy...

https://www.wired.com/story/nasa-lands-the-perseverance-rover-on-mars/

IN THE MISSION Support Area at Lockheed Martin’s campus in Littleton, Colorado, masked people sat close to computers, flying three spacecraft in orbit around Mars. These three—Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, Maven, and Odyssey—were all tasked, in one way or another, with downloading data from another spacecraft: the Mars Perseverance rover, which was attempting to land on the Red Planet. Information from these orbiters would help engineers learn about Perseverance’s status as it made its way through the atmosphere, and determine whether it survived. “Space is not a place to go,” read the words painted on one wall. “Space is a place to do.”

In the building, scattered among the usual notes about unauthorized visitors and classified meetings, signs about social distancing, masks, and symptoms were plastered around the building. “No masks with exhaust valves” warned one, aerospacily. One was posted behind the head of Lockheed’s David Scholz, who about an hour before landing had been standing in a conference room six feet from everything, sporting a blue surgical mask above his double-pocketed tan shirt. NASA’s video feed played in the background. Scholz had just described himself as a “confident nervous wreck.” That’s because he is the principal engineer for a device called an “aeroshell,” which cocoons the rover against the most extreme conditions of its downward trip toward the surface of Mars.

The Lockheed engineers had been working on this project for years, and today, Scholz and his team could finally watch it be put to use. But this morning, that’s all they could do: watch. Their system was automated, and would do its job without them.

And so they watched as a human-made object fell from the sky, aiming to touch down in a crater called Jezero. The landing, scheduled for 12:55 pm Pacific Time, would mark the end of the Perseverance rover’s journey through space, and the beginning of its stay at this desolate destination: a depression that was—billions of years ago—home to a lake and a river delta. It’s a place life could, theoretically, have once survived.

Looking for spots that seem like they might have been amenable to ancient life, and evidence of potential past habitation, are among the Mars 2020 mission’s goals. The rover will also collect and store geological samples for a future mission to retrieve, and try producing oxygen from the planet’s plentiful carbon dioxide, in anticipation of future human astronauts’ needs.

But to get there, the spacecraft had to survive a harrowing process that engineers call “entry, descent, and landing,” or EDL, which is what the Lockheed Martin team was now nervously awaiting. These final stages happen during what’s been called (to the point of cliche) the “seven minutes of terror”—the time when the spacecraft must autonomously orchestrate its own E, D, and L without smashing into the ground. During its wild ride, the rover would experience speeds of around 12,100 miles per hour and feel the equivalent of 12 times Earth’s gravity during deceleration. Its protective sheath would heat up to about 2,370 degrees Farhenheit. Much could go awry: The craft could get too hot; its bits might not separate when they were supposed to; even if they did separate correctly, they could “recontact” (read: hit) each other; Perseverance could land in the wrong location; it could end up making its own impact crater. Choose your own nightmare.

“The key thing about EDL is that everything has to go right,” Allen Chen of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, who leads the EDL team, had told me a couple of weeks before the landing. “There’s no partial credit.”

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Pretty effing awesome - cool that the rover has a small drone to fly up and get some aerial shots. Sadly, no images of space monkies yet.

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Friday, February 19, 2021 9:58 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK

That sounds like the coolest game of Lunar Lander that anybody has ever played.

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A government is a body of people usually, notably, governed by Mark Zuckerborg and Slack Dorsey.

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Friday, February 19, 2021 12:44 PM

CAPTAINCRUNCH

... stay crunchy...

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
That sounds like the coolest game of Lunar Lander that anybody has ever played.

A 300 million mile road trip. One way. The fact that all the sequences worked like they were designed to is beyond incredible. We can really do some sh*t when we put our collective minds to it.

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Friday, February 19, 2021 3:19 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK

Truth.

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A government is a body of people usually, notably, governed by Mark Zuckerborg and Slack Dorsey.

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Sunday, February 21, 2021 3:05 PM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!

Quote:
A 300 million mile road trip. One way.

Not entirely true.

If all goes well, vials Perseverance will use to collect rock samples will be picked up by another rover, taken to another lander, loaded onto a small rocket, shot back up into the Mars orbit, intercepted by another ship, and then sent back to Earth. If reentry & all goes according to plan, we'll have actual samples of Mars to study - right here on Earth.

Round trip ticket.

Fathom the hypocrisy of a government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured... but not everyone must prove they are a citizen

I'm just a red pill guy in a room full of blue pill addicts.

" AU, that was great, LOL!! " - Chrisisall

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Sunday, February 21, 2021 9:14 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK

I saw Species 2. I know what happens next.

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A government is a body of people usually, notably, governed by Mark Zuckerborg and Slack Dorsey.

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Monday, February 22, 2021 7:53 AM

CAPTAINCRUNCH

... stay crunchy...

Quote:
Originally posted by AURaptor:
Quote:
A 300 million mile road trip. One way.

Not entirely true.

If all goes well, vials Perseverance will use to collect rock samples will be picked up by another rover, taken to another lander, loaded onto a small rocket, shot back up into the Mars orbit, intercepted by another ship, and then sent back to Earth. If reentry & all goes according to plan, we'll have actual samples of Mars to study - right here on Earth.

Round trip ticket.

That rover ain't coming back. The first image of the landscape was tagged: "This is my forever home." The samples? A definite maybe.

TODAY: at around 2pm NASA is going to show new images + freaking video from the helicopter. My advice: send a GoPro next time! 90 seconds of flight isn't enough. Why so little? Certainly charging is easy with so little atmosphere. They had a chance to go for the big WOW moment and engage a billion humans - yanno, "reach for the stars" or something.

More advice. NASA, It's time to dump the "isn't science neat?!?" child-like attitude and references to what they do and their public facing image. Some of their video marketing is like they are talking to 5 year olds. It's much more significant than that and they should start treating it that way. Their presentation of this mission - probably hampered by funding - has been awe inspiring but has little chance of engaging the general public imho. They'll never get BIG funding if they keep thinking so small in terms of how they present and even think of themselves.

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Monday, February 22, 2021 11:13 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK

Yup. They need to fire their marketing director. I wouldn't have even know about this mission and the successful landing if you hadn't posted it here.

I've reduced my news consumption to about 5% of what it was last year, but it's amazing to me that even with the little bit I do pay attention to these days that this hasn't hit my radar. My old man and my grandma still watch a lot more news than I do, and each from different sources, and neither of them have brought this up either. None of the rest of my family. None of my friends. (I'm actually going to do a little experiment myself now and ask around and see how many of them even know that this did happen).

Have you watched Moonbase 8 yet, Cap'n?

The running gag on that show is just how abysmal the NASA funding is and the punchline comes in the episode with SpaceX.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8594164/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0

Quote:
Fred Armisen, Tim Heidecker and John C. Reilly star in this new comedy series as three astronauts trying to qualify for their first lunar mission. They encounter obstacles along the way including loneliness, self-doubt and incompetence.

Not in my top 10 or anything, but it is witty and it'd be a high recommend for somebody who is interested in space exploration.

I believe you need a premium Hulu subscription to stream it now if you don't have any other means.

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A government is a body of people usually, notably, governed by Mark Zuckerborg and Slack Dorsey.

Collection of links to Second's, Nilbog's and Marcos' death threats: https://cutt.ly/tkCvEX6

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Monday, February 22, 2021 2:00 PM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!

Yes I know, the rover itself is never coming back. Which is why it is “ mostly true “ that everything delivered with this mission will stay on Mars.. And If the samples do make it back, it will be an historic first. But we will have to wait and see.

As for the little drone Ingenuity, it needs to crank up its blades 4 to 5 times faster than it would here on earth because the atmosphere is so thin. Plus it needs to use some of its energy to keep its internal components from freezing solid. It will fly for 90 seconds, at max, and then recharge. So as long as it keeps its solar cells dust free and can recharge, it will keep flying. Fingers crossed.

Fathom the hypocrisy of a government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured... but not everyone must prove they are a citizen

I'm just a red pill guy in a room full of blue pill addicts.

" AU, that was great, LOL!! " - Chrisisall

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Wednesday, February 24, 2021 10:37 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK

Do you think the Martians that live underground saw the rover and thought to themselves...

--------------------------------------------------

A government is a body of people usually, notably, governed by Mark Zuckerborg and Slack Dorsey.

Collection of links to Second's, Nilbog's and Marcos' death threats: https://cutt.ly/tkCvEX6

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Wednesday, February 24, 2021 3:20 PM

JEWELSTAITEFAN

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Yup. They need to fire their marketing director. I wouldn't have even know about this mission and the successful landing if you hadn't posted it here.

If you were not such a hypocritical jackhole illiterate Libtard, you would have known about it last November when it was still 25 million miles away, traveling about 1.6 miles per second and Rish Limbaugh spent a segment of his show discussing Perseverance and the mission.

Pity you were insistent about being an ignorant jackhole and oblivious to science and technology.

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Wednesday, February 24, 2021 11:22 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK

I'm not a Libtard.

If you haven't been paying attention, I'm the one regularly giving the Lefties shit on these boards.

Don't get your panties in a twist because I kicked your ass in the Limbaugh thread, Sally.

--------------------------------------------------

A government is a body of people usually, notably, governed by Mark Zuckerborg and Slack Dorsey.

Collection of links to Second's, Nilbog's and Marcos' death threats: https://cutt.ly/tkCvEX6

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Tuesday, December 7, 2021 8:14 PM

JEWELSTAITEFAN

Aw, Jeez, those pics are sweet.

https://ca.news.yahoo.com/chinas-moon-rover-spotted-mysterious-1101338
71.html

Will take Rover 3-4 months to trek over to investigate.

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