Space and Astronomy in general

fangblackbone wrote:

Those wheels look a little frail. I take it they are made of carbon fiber or something like that?

According to NASA:

Engineers redesigned the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover's wheels to be more robust due to the wear and tear the Curiosity rover wheels endured while driving over sharp, pointy rocks. Perseverance's wheels are narrower than Curiosity's, but bigger in diameter and made of thicker aluminum. The combination of the larger instrument suite, new Sampling and Caching System, and modified wheels makes Perseverance heavier than its predecessor, Curiosity.

Fingers crossed for this landing! I was hoping to track it live, but I'll be in the middle of purchasing a new vehicle to replace my wife's recently totaled one. Here's hoping for good news once I finish that distasteful task!

I believe they’re aluminum.

Edit: oops, didn’t notice I was at the end of a page.

This is from 2012 but it is still amazing to me.

That is pretty amazing and will never get old.

Touchdown!

Stele wrote:

Touchdown!

WOO HOO!

Whew; now I can go to the bathroom!

EDIT: And back just in time to see the engineering camera. Awesome.

Pictures woohoo

Wooooooo

Amazes me that NASA can still pull stuff like this off without a hitch. That team is incredible.

Post-landing briefing at 17:30 EST.

IMAGE(https://dynaimage.cdn.cnn.com/cnn/digital-images/org/5e0a80f4-8d42-4871-8a9b-7252f42cf067.jpeg)

First images coming through

Wow, that felt cathartic to me for some reason. The amazing things we can do.

My mom will proudly tell anyone that she sat me in front of the television to watch Neil Armstrong walk on the moon when I was not quite two years old.

I don't remember that event, of course, but I also don't remember a time when I didn't love space exploration.

It's incredible they managed to land another one on the planet! Wooo! I hope that drone copter they have there is able to fly and get some great shots!

Gaald wrote:

It's incredible they managed to land another one on the planet! Wooo! I hope that drone copter they have there is able to fly and get some great shots!

I'm a bit sad they just flew it off to crash it.....Thanks SkyCrane!

Hobear wrote:
Gaald wrote:

It's incredible they managed to land another one on the planet! Wooo! I hope that drone copter they have there is able to fly and get some great shots!

I'm a bit sad they just flew it off to crash it.....Thanks SkyCrane!

Perhaps it will be recovered someday and placed into a museum on Mars.

Curated by Bobby Draper

Hobear wrote:
Gaald wrote:

It's incredible they managed to land another one on the planet! Wooo! I hope that drone copter they have there is able to fly and get some great shots!

I'm a bit sad they just flew it off to crash it.....Thanks SkyCrane!

I think you are talking about 2 different things. SkyCrane, the great and wonderful deliverer, has gone off to safely crash. Perseverance has a buddy called Ingenuity that is a separate helicopter drone and I think that's what Gaald was referring to.

Gaald wrote:

It's incredible they managed to land another one on the planet! Wooo! I hope that drone copter they have there is able to fly and get some great shots!

I am so looking forward to that.

You could see the excitement in MiMi Aung (Ingenuity lead engineer) during her post-landing interview. She is ready to get to work.

I know in my head that this copter is "just a tech demonstration" rather than a science instrument, but I am so looking forward to seeing it work and help Perseverance explore Jezero.

Mars: The only known planet inhabited entirely by robots.

CaptainCrowbar wrote:

Mars: The only known planet inhabited entirely by robots.

IMAGE(https://www.gamerswithjobs.com/files/pictures/pictures/picture-5980.png)Avatar checks out (sorta)...

So good. They're almost making this look routine.

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/nDGBlup.png)

It was good to see that they were trying to temper everyone's expectations, just in case.

Eager to see the tech involved in the mission to pick up the robot poop (the core samples).

Nevin73 wrote:

It was good to see that they were trying to temper everyone's expectations, just in case.

Eager to see the tech involved in the mission to pick up the robot poop (the core samples).

Yeah, can someone explain this one to me? We sent a robot to Mars, which (among many other valuable scientific tasks) is going to drill core samples, seal them up in capsules, and then just leave them littered across the Martian landscape, in the hopes that a not-yet-approved subsequent mission could retrieve them sometime in the next decade?

Yep, that's pretty much it.

It would be a less expensive mission, because a drone to pick up the samples would be very small, would only have to lift them up to Martian orbit, and an orbiter with a return capsule would send them back to Earth.

It is relatively costly to get all that to mars, but compared to Curiosity or Perseverance, it's peanuts.

It's really cool. 4 missions. To my knowledge people are currently working on all 4 missions. So they are approved in some form as money is being handed out.

1) This one that just landed to pick up and poop out samples in tubes in addition to lots of analysis and testing.
2) Land another rover with a more specific purpose... to gather the tubes and bring it to #3
3) Land a rocket launcher on Mars and then launch a rocket from Mars into orbit containing the samples. (I do some small amount of work on this one. The design process for the rocket was pretty cool.)
4) Fly home and smash into Earth because parachutes fail too often to be trusted... just build a box that survives the crash to make sure the samples don't contaminate Earth and vise versa.

manta173 wrote:

4) Fly home and smash into Earth because parachutes fail too often to be trusted... just build a box that survives the crash to make sure the samples don't contaminate Earth and vise versa.

I love it. It's like the "I know, let's surround the lander with balloons!" approach.