3 For Mars

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TheGreenGoblin
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Re: 3 For Mars

#121 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Tue Apr 27, 2021 3:46 am

Boac wrote:
Mon Apr 26, 2021 7:31 pm
This for TGG as a refresher on how to do it
:p ;)))
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Re: 3 For Mars

#122 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Tue Apr 27, 2021 3:55 am

Meanwhile on another rather more beautiful planet, a drone flies too...

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Re: 3 For Mars

#123 Post by ian16th » Tue Apr 27, 2021 11:02 am

Yea! Hot stuff!

This is one of Earths most active volcanos.



Fortunately not this active when I've been close to it.
Cynicism improves with age

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Re: 3 For Mars

#124 Post by Boac » Thu Apr 29, 2021 7:39 pm

A small hiccup?

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Re: 3 For Mars

#125 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Thu Apr 29, 2021 8:49 pm

Boac wrote:
Thu Apr 29, 2021 7:39 pm
A small hiccup?
Software problem?
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Re: 3 For Mars

#126 Post by PHXPhlyer » Thu Apr 29, 2021 9:24 pm

Mars helicopter will get another chance at daring fourth flight Friday

https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/29/world/ma ... index.html

(CNN)The Ingenuity helicopter had risen to every challenge it faced on Mars so far, and now it's confronting a new one. But the little chopper will live to fly another day -- specifically on Friday.

Ingenuity was supposed to lift off Thursday for a flight that pushed it further, faster and longer than before. However, the flight didn't happen as planned. The helicopter's team reported that Ingenuity remains safe and in good condition.
"Aim high, and fly, fly again. The Mars Helicopter's ambitious fourth flight didn't get off the ground, but the team is assessing the data and will aim to try again soon. We'll keep you posted," read an update from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory Twitter account posted on Thursday afternoon.
The 4-pound chopper was scheduled to attempt its fourth flight on the red planet Thursday at 10:12 a.m. ET, or 12:30 p.m. local Mars time.
Data sent back by the helicopter at 1:21 p.m. ET Thursday showed that the helicopter did not transition to flight mode. This is required before any flights can happen, according to the team.
This is the first real bump in the road since Ingenuity's initial flight attempt was rescheduled from April 11 to April 19 due to a flight software issue.
The team believes this same software issue kept the helicopter from flying on Thursday.
The helicopter's computer includes a watchdog timer that expires and prevents flight if it senses any hindrances. However, there is a known issue concerning a 15% chance that this timer could expire each time the helicopter attempts a flight. This likely is what occurred Thursday. The time-out does not prevent future flights, the team said.
Another attempt of the fourth flight will occur Friday at 10:46 a.m. ET, or 12:30 p.m. local Mars time. The first flight data will be returned to the control room at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, at 1:39 p.m. ET.
Prior to this, Ingenuity aced three flights flawlessly.
In fact, the mission has met all of its objectives. The fourth and fifth flights really are meant to test and push its capabilities.
"From millions of miles away, Ingenuity checked all the technical boxes we had at NASA about the possibility of powered, controlled flight at the Red Planet," said Lori Glaze, director of NASA's Planetary Science Division, in a statement.
"Future Mars exploration missions can now confidently consider the added capability an aerial exploration may bring to a science mission."
Ingenuity is a technology demonstration, which means it has a limited time to meet objectives set by its mission team.
The data from its experimental flights on Mars this month could inform the design of other rotorcraft to fly on Mars and other planets that can act as scouts for rovers and astronauts alike.

The three main objectives for Ingenuity involved flying through the thin Martian atmosphere; demonstrating powered, controlled flight on another planet; and pushing the capabilities Ingenuity showed during testing on Earth. All of those targets have been met over the course of the helicopter's three flights thus far.
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"When Ingenuity's landing legs touched down after that third flight, we knew we had accumulated more than enough data to help engineers design future generations of Mars helicopters," said J. "Bob" Balaram, Ingenuity chief engineer at JPL, in a statement. "Now we plan to extend our range, speed, and duration to gain further performance insight."
According to the fourth flight plan, Ingenuity will ascend to its usual altitude of 16 feet (5 meters) and then fly south for 276 feet (84 meters). It will pass over rocks, small impact craters and sand ripples and use its black-and-white navigation camera to image this intriguing landscape every 4 feet (1.2 meters).
Ingenuity will travel a total of 436 feet (133 meters) downrange from its "helipad" in Wright Brothers Field, stop for a hover and collect images with its color camera before heading back to its landing site.

"To achieve the distance necessary for this scouting flight, we're going to break our own Mars records set during flight three," said Johnny Lam, backup pilot for the Ingenuity Mars helicopter at JPL, in a statement. "We're upping the time airborne from 80 seconds to 117, increasing our max airspeed from 2 meters per second to 3.5 (4.5 mph to 8), and more than doubling our total range."
The Perseverance rover also will be poised to capture images and video of Ingenuity's flight.
Once data and images are returned from the fourth flight, the mission team will determine their plan for the helicopter's fifth outing. Plans for the remaining flight campaign will be discussed during a virtual briefing hosted by NASA on Friday at 11:30 a.m. ET.
"We have been kicking around several options regarding what a flight five could look like," Balaram said. "But ask me about what they entail after a successful flight four. The team remains committed to building our flight experience one step at a time."

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Re: 3 For Mars

#127 Post by Boac » Fri Apr 30, 2021 6:54 am

the helicopter did not transition to flight mode. This is required before any flights can happen, according to the team.
No *****, Sherlock................ =))

I have flown with a few co-pilots like that.

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Re: 3 For Mars

#128 Post by PHXPhlyer » Fri Apr 30, 2021 9:54 pm

After fourth successful flight, Mars helicopter gets a new mission :-bd

https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/30/world/ma ... index.html

(CNN)After four successful flights on Mars, the Ingenuity helicopter is graduating to a new phase of its mission and will fly for at least another month on the red planet.

The little 4-pound chopper has achieved all of its objectives -- and now it will chase after new ones. This also means the Perseverance rover and its aerial sidekick get to spend more time together working on a joint mission.
"Ingenuity is going to transition from a technology demonstration, where we prove the technical capabilities of the helicopter, to an operations demonstration where we're going to gather information on the operational support capability of the helicopter while Perseverance focuses on its science mission," said Lori Glaze, director of NASA's Planetary Science Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington, during a press conference Friday.
The helicopter has exceeded expectations, which drove the decision to further its mission and test out capabilities. This will allow Ingenuity to demonstrate flight operations that could benefit the future exploration of Mars.
"Our team has been extremely happy and proud of the Ingenuity flights to date, and now it's like Ingenuity is graduating from the tech demo phase to the new ops demo phase where we can show how a rotorcraft can be used and ensure products that only an aerial platform from an aerial dimension can give," said MiMi Aung, Ingenuity project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, during the press conference.
Fourth flight findings
Ingenuity was supposed to lift off Thursday, but data showed that the helicopter did not transition to flight mode, so the fourth flight was rescheduled for Friday.
The helicopter's computer includes a watchdog timer that expires and prevents flight if it senses any hindrances. However, there is a known issue regarding a 15% chance that this timer could expire each time the helicopter attempts a flight. The time-out does not prevent future flights, but it did lead to a postponement of Ingenuity's initial flight and the fourth flight, the team said.
As members of the helicopter team target more flights, they may deploy a fix to the software "so we don't have to play this dice game every time we try to fly," said Bob Balaram, Ingenuity chief engineer at JPL.
Another attempt of the fourth flight occurred Friday at 10:49 a.m. ET, or 12:33 p.m. local Mars time.

The first flight data came in to the JPL control room at 1:39 p.m. ET.
Ingenuity ascended to its usual altitude of 16 feet (5 meters) and then flew south for 436 feet (133 meters). It passed over rocks, small impact craters and sand ripples and used its black-and-white navigation camera to capture images of this intriguing landscape every 4 feet (1.2 meters).
The helicopter increased its max airspeed to 8 miles per hour (3.6 meters per second).
Ingenuity traveled for an 872-foot (266-meter) round trip and remained in the air for 117 seconds, which was "another set of records for the helicopter, even compared to the spectacular third flight," Aung wrote in an update.

The Perseverance rover also captured images and video of Ingenuity's flight -- including sound for the first time.
During the flight, the helicopter's cameras captured views that provide "an aerial perspective of Mars that humanity has never seen before," Aung wrote.
The images taken by the chopper and the rover will be shared as the team has a chance to process them in the coming days.
A new phase of exploration
The new operations phase will last for 30 Martian sols, or 31 Earth days, in addition to the initial 30 sols that Ingenuity was designed for as a technology demonstration. If Ingenuity is still capable of flight beyond these 60 sols, the phase may be extended, according to the helicopter team.
During the new phase, Ingenuity will focus on aerial observation of specific scientific targets using its cameras, looking at features not accessible by rovers like Perseverance, as well as scouting for potentially intriguing scientific sites. The helicopter also will seek out a new airfield to travel to and conduct more test flights.
Ingenuity also can conduct imaging that will help improve digital elevation maps of the Jezero Crater site, where both Perseverance and the helicopter are located. These maps could benefit future aerial missions.

The fourth and fifth flights are still considered to be part of the tech demo phase. Ingenuity will conduct its sixth and seventh flights during the new operations phase. The operations phase will begin in about two weeks.

Data from the fourth flight will inform plans for Ingenuity's future aerial adventures. For the fifth flight, Ingenuity will depart Wright Brothers Field, the home of its first four experimental flights, and make a one-way flight transfer to a new airfield. This flight is expected to occur in about a week.
So far, the helicopter has remained healthy, with only a software glitch postponing a couple of its flights. The only concern moving forward that could impact Ingenuity's longevity is its durability as it experiences continual cycles of freezing and thawing, Balaram said.
"It wasn't really designed for a long mission," Balaram said. "The expectation is that at some point, something will snap."
During future flights, Ingenuity will soar over previously unsurveyed terrain, which means "there's a high probability of a bad landing," Aung said.
She said that each image and video has brought her and the team so much joy that they "almost feel the freedom that Ingenuity feels" as it flies.
"We will be celebrating each day that Ingenuity survives and operates beyond the original window," Aung said.
The rover and the helicopter
The continuation of Ingenuity's mission will proceed as long as it remains on a "not to interfere" basis with the science mission of the Perseverance rover.
While Ingenuity conducted its initial flights, the rover remained perched at an overlook to take video and images, preventing it from doing much else.

Now, it's time to prepare Perseverance to investigate intriguing rocks and sample them so that future missions can return them to Earth in the search for evidence of ancient microbial life beyond our planet.
"The challenge that we foresaw originally with the helicopter, and the science mission, is that we thought we would be doing an intensive drive campaign in which the helicopter would not be able to keep up," said Ken Farley, Perseverance project scientist at the California Institute of Technology.
But in a fortuitous twist, the rover has discovered a wealth of rocks that the science team wants to study in detail not far from Ingenuity's original airfield.
Perseverance will spend the next couple hundred sols exploring a 1.24-mile (2-kilometer) patch of Jezero Crater's floor. Members of the science team believe they will find some of the oldest material in the crater, the site of a 3.9-billion-year-old lake bed.

"These rocks are likely to be mudstones, once mud at the bottom of the lake, and these are very important for our investigation because this is the kind of environment that we expect to be most habitable by organisms that might have existed on Mars billions of years ago, as well as having the capability to preserve bio signatures over the billions of years since," Farley said.
The rover will collect three or four samples of the area before heading northwest toward the ancient, dry river delta.
Before this collection can begin, Perseverance needs to go through some more checkouts to prepare its sampling system and driving capabilities. The team estimates Perseverance will collect its first sample in July, said Jennifer Trosper, Perseverance rover deputy project manager at JPL.
Ingenuity will be the one leaving Perseverance in search of new airfields.

The two robots can be a kilometer or more apart, or over half a mile, and still be able to communicate with each other. Ingenuity won't require as much support from the rover during the operations phase, freeing up the rover to embark on its main quest.
"I think Perseverance has enjoyed having a little buddy there on the surface," Trosper said.
The rover and helicopter teams will use the 30 sols of the operations phase to test out how the two missions can work in sync.
"Now that we're moving into this additional demonstration phase, we really do have to see whether it is possible to carry out the science mission, and support the helicopter simultaneously," Farley said.
Ingenuity will wrap up flight operations no later than the end of August, which will allow the rover team to conclude their science activities and prepare for a communications blackout between Mars and Earth in mid-October when the two planets are on opposite sides of the sun.
"We have so appreciated the support provided by the Perseverance rover team during our technology demonstration phase," Aung said. "Now we have a chance to pay it forward, demonstrating for future robotic and even crewed missions the benefits of having a partner nearby that can provide a different perspective -- one from the sky."

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Re: 3 For Mars

#129 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Mon May 03, 2021 9:51 am



Mars reminds me of the Kaokoveld, but just far more daunting, bombarded by solar radiation, cosmic radiation and with huge temperature extremes and lacking oxygen or much of an atmosphere at all. Beware all those that would go there.

Kaokoveld.JPG
PS - I recommend that everybody who can, visit the Kaokoveld at least once during their lives. It is truly a beautiful place.

Kaokoland
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Re: 3 For Mars

#130 Post by Boac » Mon May 03, 2021 10:58 am

Well done NASA!

I can see where your liking for kaoko comes from =))

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Re: 3 For Mars

#131 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Mon May 03, 2021 11:43 am

Boac wrote:
Mon May 03, 2021 10:58 am
Well done NASA!

I can see where your liking for kaoko comes from =))
Caco loved kaoko or Koko Kanu ... but the Goblin glugs cocoa... ;))) =))
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Re: 3 For Mars

#132 Post by PHXPhlyer » Fri May 07, 2021 6:33 pm

Mars helicopter is flying one-way to a new destination

https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/07/world/ma ... index.html

By Ashley Strickland, CNN
Updated 1:50 PM ET, Fri May 7, 2021

(CNN)It's the little chopper that could.

After four historic flights, the Ingenuity Mars helicopter is ready to fly to a new destination. The 4-pound chopper will make a one-way flight to its next airfield on Friday.
As with previous flights, Ingenuity will take off from Wright Brothers Field, but it's not coming back.
This time, Ingenuity will ascend 16 feet (5 meters) in the air and fly 423 feet (129 meters) south. This retraces the path the helicopter made during its fourth flight while scouting for the next location.
After fourth successful flight, Mars helicopter gets a new mission

Then, the 4-pound rotorcraft will climb to a new height record of 33 feet (10 meters) to take color and black-and-white images of this new airfield.
After logging a flight of 110 seconds, Ingenuity will land.
The flight is scheduled to begin at 3:26 p.m. ET or 12:33 p.m. local Mars time, with data streaming back in to the control room where the mission is managed at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, around 7:31 p.m. ET.

Data and images from the flight will begin to appear after that if the helicopter had a successful fight.
The Perseverance rover, which has been capturing video and images of the helicopter's flights, also shared audio it collected from Ingenuity's fourth flight using the rover's microphones.
This is the first time a spacecraft on another planet has recorded the sounds of a separate spacecraft. Perseverance was able to pick up the subtle hum of the helicopter while parked 262 feet (80 meters) away.
Over the course of four flights, Ingenuity has demonstrated that powered, controlled flight is possible on another planet. The Mars helicopter has also met each challenge to fly faster, longer and further than the previous flight.
"The Wrights did that, too," wrote Josh Ravich, Ingenuity Mars Helicopter mechanical engineering lead at JPL, in an update about the helicopter. "They didn't quit after one successful flight with Flyer I, or even the other three flights they did on that historic December day in 1903."

The Wright brothers flew higher and farther using upgraded versions of the Flyer in 1904 and 1905 and carried their first air passenger in 1908.
"In a sense, over the course of three weeks and four flights, the Ingenuity team has gone from the Wright brothers of 1903 to the Wright brothers of 1908, but in weeks rather than years," Ravich wrote.
Ingenuity is holding up well on Mars, and its power system is providing enough energy to keep the chopper warm during frigid Martian nights and fly during the day.
"Our helicopter is even more robust than we had hoped," Ravich wrote.

Ingenuity isn't just making history, but it carries some history with it.
A postage stamp-size piece of muslin that covered one of the wings from the Wright brothers' Flyer 1 is attached to a cable beneath the helicopter's solar panel. Ravich and test engineer and fellow teammate Chris Lefler attached the material to the Ingenuity while it was being built on Earth.
"The Wrights showed what could be accomplished with a combination of teamwork, creativity, and tenacity -- and a bit of ingenuity and perseverance," Ravich wrote.
"On flight day, when I look around the room and online at our team, I see a lot of the same sort of vision and tenacity/spirit that made the Wright brothers who they were. Together, we are continuing our Wright brothers moments on Mars."
New phase of exploration
Once the fifth flight is complete, Ingenuity will begin a new phase and fly for at least another month on Mars, transitioning from a technology demonstration to an operations demonstration.

The new operations phase will last for 30 Martian sols, or 31 Earth days, in addition to the initial 30 sols that Ingenuity was designed for as a tech demo. If Ingenuity is still capable of flight beyond these 60 sols, the phase may be extended, according to the helicopter team.
During the new phase, Ingenuity will focus on aerial observation of specific scientific targets using its cameras, looking at features not accessible by rovers like Perseverance, as well as scouting for potentially intriguing scientific sites. The helicopter also will seek out a new airfield to travel to and conduct more test flights.
The continuation of Ingenuity's mission will proceed as long as it remains on a "not to interfere" basis with the science mission of the Perseverance rover.
While Ingenuity conducted its initial flights, the rover remained perched at an overlook to take video and images, preventing it from doing much else.

Now, it's time to prepare Perseverance to investigate intriguing rocks and sample them so that future missions can return them to Earth in the search for evidence of ancient microbial life beyond our planet.
Perseverance will spend the next couple hundred sols exploring a 1.24-mile (2-kilometer) patch of Jezero Crater's floor. Members of the science team believe they will find some of the oldest material in the crater, the site of a 3.9-billion-year-old lake bed.
Ingenuity won't require as much support from the rover during the operations phase, freeing up the rover to embark on its main quest.

"We are traveling to a new base because this is the direction Perseverance is going, and if we want to continue to demonstrate what can be done from an aerial perspective, we have to go where the rover goes," Ravich wrote. "The Wrights did the same in 1908 -- even traveling all the way to LeMans, France, to demonstrate the capabilities of their aircraft."
The two robots can be or over half a mile (1 kilometer), or more apart, and still be able to communicate with each other.
Ingenuity will wrap up flight operations no later than the end of August, which will allow the rover team to conclude their science activities and prepare for a communications blackout between Mars and Earth in mid-October when the two planets are on opposite sides of the sun.

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Re: 3 For Mars

#133 Post by llondel » Fri May 07, 2021 7:57 pm

They don't want to push the comparison with the Wright brothers too far, didn't one of them get killed in a crash?

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Re: 3 For Mars

#134 Post by PHXPhlyer » Sat May 08, 2021 1:54 am

Mars helicopter successfully flies to a new destination
(CNN)It's the little chopper that could.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/07/world/ma ... index.html

After four historic flights, the Ingenuity Mars helicopter successfully flew to a new destination. The 4-pound chopper conducted a one-way flight to its new airfield on Friday.
As with previous flights, Ingenuity took off from Wright Brothers Field, but it's not coming back.

This time, Ingenuity ascended 16 feet (5 meters) in the air and flew 423 feet (129 meters) south. This retraces the path the helicopter made during its fourth flight while scouting for the next location.

Then, the rotorcraft climbed to a new height record of 33 feet (10 meters) to take color and black-and-white images of this new airfield.
After logging a flight of 108 seconds, Ingenuity landed in its new home.
"The fifth flight of the Mars Helicopter is another great achievement for the agency," said Bob Pearce, associate administrator for NASA's Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate, in a statement. "The continuing success of Ingenuity proves the value of bringing together the strengths of diverse skill sets from across the agency to create the future, like flying an aircraft on another planet!"
The flight began at 3:26 p.m. ET or 12:33 p.m. local Mars time. Data streamed back in to the control room where the mission is managed at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, around 7:31 p.m. ET.

"We bid adieu to our first Martian home, Wright Brothers Field, with grateful thanks for the support it provided to the historic first flights of a planetary rotorcraft," said Bob Balaram, chief engineer for Ingenuity Mars Helicopter at JPL, in a statement. "No matter where we go from here, we will always carry with us a reminder of how much those two bicycle builders from Dayton meant to us during our pursuit of the first flight on another world."
The Perseverance rover, which has been capturing video and images of the helicopter's flights, also shared audio it collected from Ingenuity's fourth flight using the rover's microphones.
This is the first time a spacecraft on another planet has recorded the sounds of a separate spacecraft. Perseverance was able to pick up the subtle hum of the helicopter while parked 262 feet (80 meters) away.

Over the course of its aerial excursions, Ingenuity has demonstrated that powered, controlled flight is possible on another planet. The Mars helicopter also has met each challenge to fly faster, longer and further than the previous flight.
"The Wrights did that, too," wrote Josh Ravich, Ingenuity Mars Helicopter mechanical engineering lead at JPL, in an update about the helicopter. "They didn't quit after one successful flight with Flyer I, or even the other three flights they did on that historic December day in 1903."

The Wright brothers flew higher and farther using upgraded versions of the Flyer in 1904 and 1905 and carried their first air passenger in 1908.
"In a sense, over the course of three weeks and four flights, the Ingenuity team has gone from the Wright brothers of 1903 to the Wright brothers of 1908, but in weeks rather than years," Ravich wrote.
Ingenuity is holding up well on Mars, and its power system is providing enough energy to keep the chopper warm during frigid Martian nights and fly during the day.
"Our helicopter is even more robust than we had hoped," Ravich wrote.

Ingenuity isn't just making history, but it carries some history with it. A postage stamp-size piece of muslin that covered one of the wings from the Wright brothers' Flyer 1 is attached to a cable beneath the helicopter's solar panel. Ravich and test engineer and fellow teammate Chris Lefler attached the material to the Ingenuity while it was being built on Earth.
"The Wrights showed what could be accomplished with a combination of teamwork, creativity, and tenacity -- and a bit of ingenuity and perseverance," Ravich wrote.
"On flight day, when I look around the room and online at our team, I see a lot of the same sort of vision and tenacity/spirit that made the Wright brothers who they were. Together, we are continuing our Wright brothers moments on Mars."
New phase of exploration
Now that the fifth flight is complete, Ingenuity will begin a new phase and fly for at least another month on Mars, transitioning from a technology demonstration to an operations demonstration.

The new operations phase will last for 30 Martian sols, or 31 Earth days, in addition to the initial 30 sols that Ingenuity was designed for as a tech demo. If Ingenuity is still capable of flight beyond these 60 sols, the phase may be extended, according to the helicopter team.
During the new phase, Ingenuity will focus on aerial observation of specific scientific targets using its cameras, looking at features not accessible by rovers like Perseverance, as well as scouting for potentially intriguing scientific sites. The helicopter also will seek out a new airfield to travel to and conduct more test flights.
The continuation of Ingenuity's mission will proceed as long as it remains on a "not to interfere" basis with the science mission of the Perseverance rover.
"The plan forward is to fly Ingenuity in a manner that does not reduce the pace of Perseverance science operations," Balaram said. "We may get a couple more flights in over the next few weeks, and then the agency will evaluate how we're doing. We have already been able to gather all the flight performance data that we originally came here to collect. Now, this new operations demo gives us an opportunity to further expand our knowledge of flying machines on other planets."
While Ingenuity conducted its initial flights, the rover remained perched at an overlook to take video and images, preventing it from doing much else.

Now, it's time to prepare Perseverance to investigate intriguing rocks and sample them so that future missions can return them to Earth in the search for evidence of ancient microbial life beyond our planet.
Perseverance will spend the next couple hundred sols exploring a 1.24-mile (2-kilometer) patch of Jezero Crater's floor. Members of the science team believe they will find some of the oldest material in the crater, the site of a 3.9-billion-year-old lake bed.
Ingenuity won't require as much support from the rover during the operations phase, freeing up the rover to embark on its main quest.

"We are traveling to a new base because this is the direction Perseverance is going, and if we want to continue to demonstrate what can be done from an aerial perspective, we have to go where the rover goes," Ravich wrote. "The Wrights did the same in 1908 -- even traveling all the way to LeMans, France, to demonstrate the capabilities of their aircraft."
The two robots can be over half a mile (1 kilometer) or more apart, and still be able to communicate with each other.
Ingenuity will wrap up flight operations no later than the end of August, which will allow the rover team to conclude their science activities and prepare for a communications blackout between Mars and Earth in mid-October when the two planets are on opposite sides of the sun.

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Re: 3 For Mars

#135 Post by PHXPhlyer » Mon May 10, 2021 1:18 am

NASA begins search for ancient life on Mars after arrival of Perseverance, Ingenuity spacecrafts
Anderson Cooper reports on the nerve-wracking Mars landing of the rover Perseverance, the painstaking process of launching the tiny helicopter Ingenuity, and the extraordinary images the two have already sent back to Earth.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mars-ingen ... 021-05-09/

We first told you about the tiny helicopter Ingenuity and the one-ton rover Perseverance nearly a year ago before they left Earth, but they've come a very long way since then. In February, they landed in a hazardous and previously unexplored part of Mars called the Jezero Crater, where Perseverance will be looking for signs of ancient life. Last month, Ingenuity disconnected from Perseverance's belly and made history -- performing the first flights ever in the atmosphere of another planet. It's hard to imagine but worth remembering as you watch what we're about to show you, that this all happened millions of miles away, in outer space.

Last month in this desolate Martian crater, 170 million miles from Earth, Perseverance posed for a selfie with Ingenuity, the little helicopter it had just dropped off. Two weeks later, the rover's cameras recorded Ingenuity's historic first flight, hovering ten feet off the ground for 30 seconds. It may not look like much, but for those who'd worked so long to make it happen it was a reason to rejoice.

How NASA flew a drone on Mars
Project manager Mimi Aung led the team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California that's been working on Ingenuity for six years.

Anderson Cooper: How hard is it to fly a helicopter on Mars?

Mimi Aung: Very, very, very (LAUGHTER) hard. We really-- truly started with the question of, "Is it possible?"

Anderson Cooper: A lot of people thought it-- it could not be done?

Mimi Aung: Because it's really counter-intuitive. I mean, you need atmosphere for the blades to push atmosphere to get lift. And the--

Anderson Cooper: The atmosphere on Mars is completely different

Mimi Aung: The atmosphere--on Mars is so thin. I mean, the room we're in, right, it's-- compared to that, it was 1% of the atmospheric density over there. So, the question of, really, can you generate enough lift, you know, to really build-- to lift up anything, that was the fundamental question.

perseverancescreengrabs03.jpg
Mimi Aung
In subsequent flights, Ingenuity has gone longer and farther, traveling for about two minutes and nearly the length of three football fields. It is a triumph not only for NASA, but for its partners in the private sector who helped make various parts of the helicopter.

Matt Keennon has a history of making unusual things that can fly. He's an engineer at a company called AeroVironment, which produces drones for military and civilian use.

Anderson Cooper: I mean that's incredible.

Ten years ago, for a military research project, Keennon and his team created this robotic hummingbird, which has a tiny camera onboard.

Anderson Cooper: Whoa (LAUGH)

Matt Keennon: There it is.

Anderson Cooper: Oh, my God. That's amazing.

Keennon and engineer Ben Pipenberg led the aerovironment team that created Ingenuity's rotors, motors, and landing gear.

Anderson Cooper: Why was this so challenging?

Ben Pipenberg: Because it has to be a spacecraft as well as an aircraft. And-- and flying it as a-- as an aircraft on Mars is pretty challenging because of the density of the air. It's similar to about Earth at 100,000 feet.

Anderson Cooper: How do you go about it?

Ben Pipenberg: Well, so building everything extremely lightweight is-- really, really critical.

The helicopter's blades, for example, are made of a styrofoam-like material coated with carbon fiber.

They're stiff and strong.

Ben Pipenberg: You get a sense of how lightweight and stiff that is.

Anderson Cooper: It weighs nothing.

Ben Pipenberg: Yeah, it weighs nothing.

…but incredibly light.

perseverancescreengrabs07.jpg


This is the first time they've shown an outsider this version of Ingenuity, which they plan to use for education and research. They call it "Terry."

Here on Earth, Terry's blades are spinning at about 400 revolutions per minute. On Mars, in the thin atmosphere, they'd have to spin six times faster to generate the same lift.

Ingenuity cost $85 million dollars to build and operate, "Terry" a lot less. But it's still nerve-wracking to be handed its controls.

Matt Keennon: All right, go ahead. You've got it. Slide it right. You can push it all the way to the right if you want. Slide left.

Anderson Cooper: Wow.

Matt Keennon: I'll bring it up a little bit. Now stop.

The joysticks we used to fly Terry are of no use on Mars. Radio signals take too long to get there.

Even someone as good at flying drones -- and hummingbirds -- as Matt Keennon couldn't fly a helicopter on Mars. Here's what happened in 2014 in a test chamber that replicated the atmosphere on Mars when Keennon tried to use a joystick to fly an early version of Ingenuity.

Mimi Aung: Surprise.

Anderson Cooper: Wow. (LAUGH) So much for that vehicle…

Anderson Cooper: So, this very quick demonstration must have showed you a human being can't respond quickly enough to control it.

Mimi Aung: Exactly.

So engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory equipped Ingenuity with a computerized system that allows it to stabilize itself and navigate on its own. In 2016, the new system aced the chamber test…

Mimi Aung: The blades are being commanded, you know, 400 or 500 times per second.

They proved it could fly. But Ingenuity still had to weigh under four pounds and fit in the belly of Perseverance.

And it had to be tough enough to survive the journey to Mars.

On July 30, 2020, Perseverance and Ingenuity took off from Cape Canaveral.

Nearly seven months later, as this simulation shows, the spacecraft's heat shield hit the Martian atmosphere going 12,000 miles per hour.

perseverancescreengrabs18.jpg
Al Chen

PP

Part 2 to follow

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Re: 3 For Mars

#136 Post by PHXPhlyer » Mon May 10, 2021 1:21 am

CBS 60 Minutes Part 2

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mars-ingen ... 021-05-09/

As he sat in the control room, Al Chen, the leader of the landing team, had absolutely no control. Radio signals would take about 11 minutes to travel from Earth to Mars. The spacecraft was pre-programmed to descend, maneuver, and pick a landing site on its own. All the work his colleagues hoped to do on Mars would be impossible if his part of the mission failed.

Anderson Cooper: How long have you been working on this mission?

Al Chen: Coming up on nine years, or so.

Anderson Cooper: Really? That's a lot of work for seven minutes of--

Al Chen: Yep. Nine--

Anderson Cooper: --terror.

Al Chen: -- nine years of work, seven minutes of terror. (LAUGH)

Anderson Cooper: It's done if the parachute doesn't work.

Al Chen: That's right. You know, no one wants to be that-- the guy the drops the baton.

No landing by a spacecraft has ever been recorded as well as this one. There were six cameras capturing it all from different angles. The parachute deployed. Then the heat shield fell away like a lens cap, and Perseverance got its first look at the ground. This is not a simulation. This is what it looks like to parachute onto Mars.

Anderson Cooper: How fast is it moving at this point?

Al Chen: Yeah, we're still going about 350 miles an hour, and still slowing down

Anderson Cooper: So it looks gentle here, but in fact you're-- the-- it's falling at more than 300 miles an hour.

Al Chen: That's right. We're heading straight down at-- at near-racecar speeds.

perseverancescreengrabs10.jpg

Below lay a series of safe landing spots. But the wind was blowing the spacecraft towards more treacherous territory to the east. And Perseverance sent a message to Earth saying the thrusters it needed to slow down might not be working properly.

Anderson Cooper: So you get a reading saying the jets that are going to help it slow down and control the landing, that they're not working?

Al Chen: The stopping power.

Anderson Cooper: So what do you do?

Al Chen: There's nothing you can do, right? Everything already happened. That's the mind-bending part of this, right?

Anderson Cooper: You are sweating now, you were just talking about it.

Al Chen: Yeah, exactly, I'm right back there again. (LAUGHTER). So, ah, yeah.

To Al Chen's relief, Perseverance's computerized landing system did what it was designed to do: it found a suitable landing spot even in rocky terrain. And despite the warning, the thrusters worked. You can see them kicking up dust as they fire to slow the spacecraft down.

The descent stage known as the "skycrane" lowered Perseverance to the ground. It hovered for a moment, then flew off to crash a safe distance away.

Al Chen: And there goes the descent stage.

Anderson Cooper: Wow.

Al Chen: At that point, big sigh of relief-- you know? I almost-- collapsed over this console.

Ever since Perseverance landed on the red planet, a team of engineers, programmers, and scientists here on Earth have been living on Mars time. It's their job to monitor the rover's health and tell it where to go and how to search for signs of life. While Perseverance sleeps to conserve energy during the freezing Martian nights, the team on Earth analyzes the photographs and instrument readings it's sent back. They then prepare a list of things for it to do the following morning when it wakes up.

Matt Wallace: And so it's just after midnight on Mars. The vehicle's asleep.

Project manager Matt Wallace explained that a day on Mars is 40 minutes longer than on Earth. The team's schedule is constantly changing.

Anderson Cooper: So people here are-- are Mars night shift workers.

Matt Wallace: (LAUGH) Yeah, that's a good way to think of it.

Anderson Cooper: But, I mean, working night shift is tough enough. But-- this is a night shift that's constantly shifting--

Matt Wallace: Constantly moving.

Anderson Cooper: Yeah--

Matt Wallace: That's right. Yeah.

On Perseverance's fourth day on Mars, it swiveled the powerful camera on its mast and took a look around. A space enthusiast named Sean Doran put the images together, set them to music, and posted the movie on YouTube.

Even one of the top scientists on the project was moved when he saw it.

Ken Farley: I went and got a beer and watched this thing scroll by. And that… that was the moment (CLICK) when I felt like I was there.

Ken Farley leads the science team that will direct Perseverance through the Jezero Crater. It's an area that scientists have long wanted to search for signs of ancient life that may be hidden in the rocks.

Ken Farley: The oldest evidence of life on Earth is about three and a half billion years old. Those rocks were deposited in a shallow sea. This crater that you see here was a lake three and a half billion years ago. So we are looking at the same environment in the same time period on two different planets.

Anderson Cooper: And if it's determined, however long in the future, that, "No, there was not ever life," what does that mean?

Ken Farley: The place where Perseverance landed, here in Jezero Crater-- is the most habitable time period of Mars and the most habitable environment that we know about. This is-- this is as good as it gets, at least with our current understanding of what Mars has to offer. And if we don't find life here, it does make us worry that perhaps it doesn't exist anywhere.

perseverancescreengrabs14.jpg

Perseverance hasn't strayed far from its landing site yet, but it's telescopic camera has already spotted a large number of boulders that Ken Farley says he didn't expect to see in the middle of an ancient lake.
Anderson Cooper: So this has surprised you.
Ken Farley: Absolutely, yeah.
Anderson Cooper: So what did those boulders tell you?
Ken Farley: The most reasonable interpretation is a flood. You don't have fast flowing water out in the middle of a lake. You get fast flowing water in a river. And so what that's telling us is: there was a river that was capable of transporting boulders that were this big.
Anderson Cooper: So what? The lake would have gone down perhaps and then later on there was a flood?
Ken Farley: Yeah. Exactly.
Perseverance was supposed to leave Ingenuity behind after a 30-day demonstration of its flying ability. But NASA officials recently said they'll keep the duo together for another month to explore how rovers and helicopters might work together in the future.
The fastest that Perseverance was designed to travel is a tenth of a mile per hour. Ingenuity has already gone 80 times faster, according to project manager Mimi Aung.
Mimi Aung: Adding an aerial vehicle, a flying vehicle for space exploration will be game changing.
Anderson Cooper: It frees you, in a way.
Mimi Aung: Absolutely, yes. So, a flying vehicle, a rotorcraft would allow us to get to places we simply can't access today, like sites of steep cliffs, you know, inside deep crevices.
After Perseverance explores the floor of Jezero Crater, it'll head towards what's believed to be the remnant of an ancient river delta, where billions of years ago conditions should have been ripe for microorganisms to exist. As this simulation shows, the rover's robotic arm can collect about 40 core samples of rock that'll be sealed in special tubes and left on the planet's surface. NASA plans to send another mission to Mars to retrieve the tubes and bring them back to Earth. In about ten years, Ken Farley says, scientists examining those samples may be confronted with a new and perplexing question.
Ken Farley: How do you look for life that may not be life as you know it? We've never had to do that before, we've never had to actually ask the question...
Anderson Cooper: "Is there a form of life that we can't even conceive of?"
Ken Farley: Yeah, we're gonna have to conceive of it. I think that's the whole point of this: We're gonna have to start conceiving of life as we don't know it.
If all goes according to plan, Perseverance will be making tracks on Mars for years to come. Since it's carrying the first working audio microphones on the red planet, we leave you with what it sounds like as the one-ton rover slowly moves across the vast, lonely expanses of Mars.

PP

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Re: 3 For Mars

#137 Post by PHXPhlyer » Fri May 14, 2021 5:07 pm

China says its Mars rover could land this weekend
By Tricia Escobedo, CNN

https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/14/world/ch ... index.html

Updated 11:55 AM ET, Fri May 14, 2021

(CNN)China could soon join the United States as the second country to land and operate a rover on Mars.

Beijing's Tianwen-1 Mars probe is expected to land on the red planet in the coming days, as early as Saturday morning (Friday night Eastern time), according to China's space agency. The landing window extends until Wednesday.
The unmanned Tianwen-1, China's first mission to Mars, launched in July 2020 on the 465-million-kilometer journey to reach the planet. The spacecraft entered the Martian orbit in February and sent back its first photo of the planet from more than a million kilometers away.
Why Mars? The fascination with exploring the red planet
Why Mars? The fascination with exploring the red planet
The probe is "going to orbit, land and release a rover all on the very first try, and coordinate observations with an orbiter," according to the scientific team behind Tianwen-1.
"No planetary missions have ever been implemented in this way," the team said.
Tianwen-1 is one of three international Mars missions that launched last summer, along with NASA's Perseverance rover, which landed on Mars in February, and the United Arab Emirates' Hope Probe, which entered orbit around Mars, also in February. Unlike the US and China missions, the UAE probe is not intended to land on Mars -- just study the planet from orbit.

All three missions launched around the same time due to an alignment between Mars and the Earth on the same side of the sun, making for a more efficient journey to the red planet.
Tianwen-1, whose name means "Quest for Heavenly Truth," hopes to gather important information about the Martian soil, geological structure, environment and atmosphere, and to search for signs of water.
CNN's Jessie Yeung, James Griffiths and Ashley Strickland contributed to this report

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Re: 3 For Mars

#138 Post by PHXPhlyer » Sat May 15, 2021 1:30 am

China becomes only second nation in history to land a rover on Mars
The landing is a major milestone for China's space agency, which has advanced rapidly in just a few decades.

https://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/c ... s-n1267410

After several months orbiting Mars, a Chinese rover successfully touched down on the Martian surface Friday, making China the second nation, after the United States, to achieve a soft landing on the red planet.

The rover, named Zhurong after the Chinese god of fire, is part of China's Tianwen-1 mission, which launched in July 2020. The landing is a major milestone for China's space agency, which has advanced rapidly in just a few decades.

Few details about the Tianwen-1 mission have been made public, but the Mars probe and its accompanying rover are designed to map the Martian surface and search for signs of life on the planet.

The China National Space Administration said in a statement Friday that the Tianwen-1 spacecraft "has functioned normally" since it's launch last year and has collected a "huge amount of scientific data."

The Zhurong rover landed Friday shortly after 7 p.m. ET in a region of Mars known as Utopia Planitia. The vast, icy plain was also where NASA's now-defunct Viking 2 lander touched down in 1976.

China's Tianwen-1 mission is a key part of the country's lofty ambitions for space exploration. In December 2020, a Chinese probe landed on the moon and subsequently returned to Earth with a cache of lunar samples. As a result, China became only the third country, after the U.S. and the former Soviet Union, to accomplish such a feat.

In late April, China launched into orbit the first module for a planned space station. Rocket debris from that launch later fell back to Earth, crashing into the Indian Ocean and drawing criticism from NASA Administrator Bill Nelson and others over China's handling of the incident.

This year has been one for Mars missions. In addition to China's Zhurong rover, the red planet is playing host to several other new spacecraft. NASA's Perseverance rover successfully touched down on the Martian surface on Feb. 18 and officially began collecting science data this week. Previously, the rover served as a communications base for a tiny experimental helicopter, dubbed Ingenuity, which conducted the first powered, controlled flights on another planet.

In February, the United Arab Emirates' Hope probe also entered into orbit around Mars, making the UAE only the fifth nation or entity to do so. The spacecraft is designed to circle Mars and study the red planet's atmosphere.

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Re: 3 For Mars

#139 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Sat May 15, 2021 1:43 am

PHXPhlyer wrote:
Sat May 15, 2021 1:30 am
China becomes only second nation in history to land a rover on Mars
The landing is a major milestone for China's space agency, which has advanced rapidly in just a few decades.



This year has been one for Mars missions. In addition to China's Zhurong rover, the red planet is playing host to several other new spacecraft. NASA's Perseverance rover successfully touched down on the Martian surface on Feb. 18 and officially began collecting science data this week. Previously, the rover served as a communications base for a tiny experimental helicopter, dubbed Ingenuity, which conducted the first powered, controlled flights on another planet.

In February, the United Arab Emirates' Hope probe also entered into orbit around Mars, making the UAE only the fifth nation or entity to do so. The spacecraft is designed to circle Mars and study the red planet's atmosphere.

PP
China deserves credit for this achievement. Given the litany of Mars probe failures over the years, the ability to soft land one on Mars is a sign of significant technical prowess.
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Re: 3 For Mars

#140 Post by Boac » Sat May 15, 2021 7:46 am

Some 'artists' impressions' of the 'Made in China' kit. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-57122914. 'Landed' at 23:18Z on Friday. Let's hope its batteries last longer than PP's viewtopic.php?f=3&t=3531&p=291013&hilit=mouse#p291013

If the US Rover should meet the China Rover.............................? Could we have a contest? Which side of the road do the Chinese drive on?

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