Mars Perseverance rover

[foghorn]

There have been Mars rovers before, but I'm excited about this one...
Tomorrow folks.

The American space agency says its Perseverance rover is lined up perfectly for its landing on Mars.

The robot is heading for a touchdown on Thursday in a crater called Jezero just north of the planet's equator.... ….Its mission objectives will be to search for signs of past life and to collect and prepare rock samples for return to Earth in the 2030s.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-56091592

 

[sculptor]

There have been Mars rovers before, but I'm excited about this one...
Tomorrow folks.


https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-56091592

this one has a helicopter

 

[exchemist]

There have been Mars rovers before, but I'm excited about this one...
Tomorrow folks.


https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-56091592

I'll be interested in the drone and the oxygen manufacture. However I can already see how this interminable business of looking for life will turn out. Either there will be nothing of significance found, in which case there will follow a hasty qualifier that of course this does not prove that there never was any life on Mars, or they may find something that looks a bit like a stromatolite, in which case they will say it could be a sign of life - but not necessarily. So in the end we won't be any further forward.

 

[Beer w/Straw]

I'll be interested in the drone and the oxygen manufacture.

Evidence of life is one thing...

But a fanciful, ambitious crackpot idea... Change the orbit, increase the mass (using meteors with both.) Create oxygen and liquid water.

I have not drawn up plans for this yet, though.

 

[Michael 345]

or they may find something that looks a bit like a stromatolite,

No garden of Eden to get Creationist excited?

 

[foghorn]

this one has a helicopter

Yes, this sounds great, But I wonder where it will take shelter (and keep upright) when dust storms approach. Must look into this.

I I can already see how this interminable business of looking for life will turn out. Either there will be nothing of significance found, in which case there will follow a hasty qualifier that of course this does not prove that there never was any life on Mars, or they may find something that looks a bit like a stromatolite, in which case they will say it could be a sign of life - but not necessarily. So in the end we won't be any further forward.

Something like the Viking events back in the seventies . I hope this mission proves you wrong.

 

[James R]

Fingers crossed that the landing is successful. Historically, about half of all Mars missions have failed, for one reason or another. Landing on Mars, in particular, is hard.

Here's the official site:

https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/

At the time of writing this, the spacecraft is travelling at 76,000 km/hr. Everything has to go just right in order to land it safely on Mars with a speed of zero.

 

[geordief]

I am crossing my scrotum for extra luck

Can be done </wince>

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214442016300304

 

[Michael 345]

I am crossing my scrotum for extra luck

Can be done </wince>

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214442016300304

Please don't

Testicular torsion occurs when a testicle rotates, twisting the spermatic cord that brings blood to the scrotum. The reduced blood flow causes sudden and often severe pain and swelling.

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases...sion occurs when a,any age, even before birth.

Ouch wince indeed

 

[geordief]

Please don't

Testicular torsion occurs when a testicle rotates, twisting the spermatic cord that brings blood to the scrotum. The reduced blood flow causes sudden and often severe pain and swelling.

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/testicular-torsion/symptoms-causes/syc-20378270#:~:text=Testicular torsion occurs when a,any age, even before birth.

Ouch wince indeed

I wonder if that has any bearing on the postoperative pain/swelling in the scrotum I have heard tell of subsequent to some inguinal hernia operations.

Maybe just a generalised inflammation since the two areas are adjacent.

 

[Michael 345]

inguinal hernia

Oh you are pushing my brain back to the days I was training for my Registered Nurse certificate

inguinal hernia is where portion of the gut falls through the weak region which the testicles have previously migrated though on their way to take up residence in the scrotum

The ID'er, in his wisdom, decided not to close the door on the passage way, but in essence, leave it slightly ajar

 

[Michael 345]

Has Perseverance landed yet please



Currently 11:30 AM Thursday 18th in Bali Denpasar and having problem with landing time only being given relative to America ? EST



Edit - seems like landing will be 2am Bali time so will have shut eye early evening

 

[arfa brane]

Just on CNN.

First images from the Perseverance rover.

 

[James R]

I just watched the live feed of the landing. All went to plan, it seems, although I imagine there are still lots of checks to do on the lander to make sure everything is working as intended, that all booms and arms are up, helicopter is intact, etc.

It's an impressive engineering feat to get a car-sized rover all the way to Mars and land it in a particular, relatively small target area, entirely autonomously (since the signal delay from Earth to Mars is about 20 minutes, one way). Given the complicated landing system, involving entry into the atmosphere, guidance to the landing site, parachute deployment and release, free fall, rocket slowing, then "sky crane" of the lander onto the surface, lots of things could have gone wrong.

(One of the first images taken by Perseverance rover, from one of its front hazard avoidance cameras. Possibly there's still a lens cap on the camera in this image. It is low-res, and the image is also somewhat obscured by dust blown up by the rockets. But it looks like Mars.)

 

[exchemist]

I just watched the live feed of the landing. All went to plan, it seems, although I imagine there are still lots of checks to do on the lander to make sure everything is working as intended, that all booms and arms are up, helicopter is intact, etc.

It's an impressive engineering feat to get a car-sized rover all the way to Mars and land it in a particular, relatively small target area, entirely autonomously (since the signal delay from Earth to Mars is about 20 minutes, one way). Given the complicated landing system, involving entry into the atmosphere, guidance to the landing site, parachute deployment and release, free fall, rocket slowing, then "sky crane" of the lander onto the surface, lots of things could have gone wrong.

(One of the first images taken by Perseverance rover, from one of its front hazard avoidance cameras. Possibly there's still a lens cap on the camera in this image. It is low-res, and the image is also somewhat obscured by dust blown up by the rockets. But it looks like Mars.)

Nah it's a fake. Those are lumps of expanded polystyrene. Ask Fat Freddie.

 

[billvon]

Nah it's a fake. Those are lumps of expanded polystyrene. Ask Fat Freddie.

Of course it's a fake! Mars is RED. What color is that picture? It was obviously taken on the Moon. Which we never went to either.

 

[Michael 345]

Incredible. This is a photo of Perseverance short time before landing

*
The descent stage holding NASA’s Perseverance rover can be seen falling through the Martian atmosphere, its parachute trailing behind, in this image taken on Feb. 18, 2021, by the High Resolution Imaging Experiment (HiRISE) camera aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The ancient river delta, which is the target of the Perseverance mission, can be seen entering Jezero Crater from the left.

https://mars.nasa.gov/resources/25610/hirise-captured-perseverance-during-descent-to-mars/
*
And people go gaga over selfies and cute cats???

 

[foghorn]

In trying to answer the question of where or how the helicopter will avoid being blown over or where it can shelter in a dust storm, I came across this:

https://www.nap.edu/read/10360/chapter/5

The strongest surface winds observed by in situ measurements on Mars are believed to be 30 to 50 meters per second (67 to 111 miles per hour) based on eolian deposits at the Viking I landing site. From a terrestrial perspective, these wind speeds appear to represent a significant hazard. However, when the lower atmospheric dynamic pressure on Mars, resulting from a less dense atmosphere than on Earth, is accounted for, the Earth-equivalent wind speeds are much less. Dynamic pressure is proportional to the air density times the square of the wind speed, so that the following comparisons can be made:

• For the same wind speed, the dynamic pressure on Mars is less than on Earth by the ratio of air densities, or a factor of about 82.
  
  
• For the same dynamic pressure, the wind speed on Mars must be greater than on Earth by the square root of this number, or a factor of about 9.

Simply stated, the wind must blow nine times faster on Mars than here on Earth to achieve the equivalent dynamic pressure. In the strongest wind case mentioned above, a 30 to 50 meter per second (67 to 111 mile per hour) wind on Mars is roughly equivalent to a 3.3 to 5.5 meter per second (7.4 to 12 mile per hour) wind on Earth.

My bold
Not a direct answer, but it makes it less worrying.


eolian = (geology) deposited, carried or eroded by wind

 

[James R]

The batteries on the helicopter mean it can fly continuously for about 1.5 minutes. Then it has to land and charge up the batteries for a day.

To cope with the thin Martian atmosphere, its blades have to spin about 8-10 times faster than is typical for helicopters on Earth. Pressure-wise, operating the helicopter near the surface of Mars is approximately equivalent to trying to fly a helicopter on Earth at a height of 100,000 feet (something that Earth helicopters never do).

 

[geordief]

The batteries on the helicopter mean it can fly continuously for about 1.5 minutes. Then it has to land and charge up the batteries for a day.

To cope with the thin Martian atmosphere, its blades have to spin about 8-10 times faster than is typical for helicopters on Earth. Pressure-wise, operating the helicopter near the surface of Mars is approximately equivalent to trying to fly a helicopter on Earth at a height of 100,000 feet (something that Earth helicopters never do).

More of a hopper than a flight machine?