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NASA’s Perseverance rover is landing on Mars Today (up: landed within target zone)
- Thread starter Forerunner
- Start date
- Tech/Gadgets
Considering Mars likely had surface water billions of years ago (the same time when life originated on Earth, in fact) and the fact that it has most of the basic ingredients for organic life (CHNOPS) means Mars is one of the best candidates to search for life. While there won't be any on the surface for obvious reasons, the subsurface of Mars is a great place to look since even just short distances below the surface will shield potential life from the harsh radiation/temperature/etc on the surface.
This + the fact that Mars is relatively close means its an easy target to aim for. I think it will be quite difficult to drill through the ice of Europa and Enceladus to get to the oceans below, although I agree its still worth trying. And theres probably no point in sending dedicated machines to search for life on Venus when there are so many better options. Its just too inhospitable and getting anything onto the surface is incredibly difficult due to temperature + pressure.
Luckily, Enceladus - and probably Europa - have active cryovolcanism so an orbiter can fly through a plume and sample directly sample the seawater without having to land.
On the subject of data rates, I forgot to mention that you can view the activities of NASA's Deep Space Network here:
eyes.nasa.gov
Currently they're receiving data from Mars Odyssey (NASA's primary comms relay for its rovers) at 160 kbits/sec.
This will be the data for the images to be released later this morning :)
Also, Voyager 1 at 160 bits/s which is very cool :)
On the subject of data rates, I forgot to mention that you can view the activities of NASA's Deep Space Network here:
Deep Space Network Now
The real time status of communications with our deep space explorers
eyes.nasa.gov
Currently they're receiving data from Mars Odyssey (NASA's primary comms relay for its rovers) at 160 kbits/sec.
This will be the data for the images to be released later this morning :)
Also, Voyager 1 at 160 bits/s which is very cool :)
This is fascinating, thanks for sharing.On the subject of data rates, I forgot to mention that you can view the activities of NASA's Deep Space Network here:
Deep Space Network Now
The real time status of communications with our deep space explorers
Currently they're receiving data from Mars Odyssey (NASA's primary comms relay for its rovers) at 160 kbits/sec.
This will be the data for the images to be released later this morning :)
Also, Voyager 1 at 160 bits/s which is very cool :)
Comparing the Nasa landing location map to the map posted here it looks like J9/10 is where it landed? It looks like a pretty tight and dicey place to me but I guess the new and precise navigation system made it possible.
Isn't one of the primary missions of Perseverance to look for signs of past life on Mars?
regarding the atmosphere, I guess they can vacuum a space and fill it with a corresponding mix; and for gravity it could be as easy as just hanging the thing on a sort of spring that compensates for the decrease in gravity.
edit: beaten like a Martian
Once we've perfected sub-space communication then the delay will be far less.
True. I've heard it was a feature that comes with teleportation-technology; its silly that NASA never tells us anything about that :(
I have no idea how far away we are from this being technologically possible, but man, imagine the day when NASA is able to get high-quality color video footage from the surface of Mars. Seeing the amazing still images is one thing, but seeing Mars in motion for the first time is gonna be a real game changer.
thats happening in a few days or a week - Perseverance is loaded with quality cameras -just needs to get its high data rate antennna up and running so it can send it all. You'll get some high quality stuff today too. It's got a microphone as well
the landing videos are going to be nuts
Where can I get this shirt that Buzz Aldrin is wearing?
Probably on Etsy.
I'm hoping to one day see a video of a landing taken from a rover/construction already on the surface. That's when it'll feel like we have a real presence on Mars and not a scattering of rovers.
Well, ideally that could happen for the mission getting Perseverance's samples back to Earth. Otherwise, while I agree that it would be very cool, there's honestly little reason to have missions land close to each other until there's a manned missions to Mars -- there's already a rover taking care of its spot on Mars, better to look elsewhere for interesting things to analyse.
I know that one of the theorized ideas for a Mars mission is to do it in pieces with a handful of manned missions without landing to start, potentially putting in place drones or rovers to essentially create a landing base to prepare for humans landing.
The landing videos are going to be really cool, yeah.
Those will be low quality though, right? Because they were probably recorded with the same cameras it used to spot for the landing.
The ensuing robot could also be the silent defender of Earth.
At least for exploratory rovers, yeah, this is what I expect, but I'm thinking more the below situation where we start assembling something permanent that does need supply drops or new components (eg a fuel depot, permanent station, etc).
FLIR Machine Vision Cameras are Headed to Mars!
On July 30th, NASA successfully launched their Mars 2020 Perseverance rover mission, scheduled to land on the Red Planet on February 18th, 2021. The primary mission is to search for signs of ancient microscopic life and collect the first ever Martian soil samples to bring back to Earth. But the...
The down-facing camera on the descent stage (ie. watching the rover being lowered during skycrane) is 2048 × 1536
Perseverance touching down
Is the small circle the landing spot?
Image of Perseverance parachuting down taken from Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter
Perseverance’s first full-color look at Mars
Image of Perseverance parachuting down taken from Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter
Dope.
This image they just posted is awesome as well:
Dope.
This image they just posted is awesome as well:
is that the first HD image from it?
Image of Perseverance parachuting down taken from Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter
So incredible.
They're hoping to have video of the descent on Monday. They've apparently already gotten a bunch of thumbnails from the video cameras. They haven't gotten any audio back yet, but are hoping to over the weekend.
Yep!
Yep!
A couple of notes:
- This is the Curiosity rover, not the Perseverance one that just landed.
- The Curiosity rover has no video cameras, this is several still pictures stitched together and presented as a video.
- The Curiosity rover has no microphones, the audio is from something else and added later.
I feel like I've seen this before. Are you sure thats not the curiosity?
Look at the bottom left of the video at the last second of the vid.
EDIT: beaten
I got a bit emotional seeing that shot. I can only imagine how it must feel for everyone involved with this project. So much could have gone wrong between its take-off seven months ago and it's arrival yesterday. And now it's there, it's unharmed and you can see it, moments away from touching down on an alien planet, ready to fulfill its destiny.
There's no official video from the Perseverance rover yet. There's a tweet a little bit up the thread that has a simulated "video" using still images from the Curiosity rover, a sister/cousin of Perseverance, and audio from an unknown, non-Mars source. If memory serves, that "video" was created a couple of years ago as a simulation of what video from Mars would look like. It appears it is now doing the rounds as people mistake it for footage from the new rover, and somewhat understandedly so since the rovers look nearly identical and Perseverance does have video capability. There's no actual video from Mars expected until Monday at the earliest.
I loved that during the landing, NASA was listening to "heartbeat tones" from the rover to know that it was alive and well.
Perseverance's big wheel
OP
OP
Perseverance's Big Wheel
This high-resolution image shows one of the six wheels aboard NASA's Perseverance Mars rover, which landed on Feb.18, 2021. The image was taken by one of Perseverance's color Hazard Cameras (Hazcams).
