It’ll be another white knuckle ride. Curiosity was fun. Too easy. Let’s build it bigger and 100 kg heavier, weighing in at over 1,000 kg.
Traveling at about 47,740 mph compared to the sun. Landing in about 22 3/4 hours from now at roughly 3:55 p.m. ET, Thursday
A week after two space probes from China and the United Arab Emirates slipped into orbit around Mars, NASA's $2.4 billion Perseverance rover will attempt to land on the Red Planet on Thursday.
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
All landings on Mars are difficult, but NASA’s Perseverance rover is attempting to touch down in the most challenging terrain on Mars ever targeted. The intense entry, descent, and landing phase, known as EDL, begins when the spacecraft reaches the top of the Martian atmosphere. Engineers have referred to the time it takes to land on Mars as the “seven minutes of terror.” The landing sequence is complex and targeting a location like Jezero Crater on Mars is only possible because of new landing technologies known as Range Trigger and Terrain-Relative Navigation. The Perseverance rover is set to land on the surface of Mars on February 18, 2021. For more information about Perseverance, visit https://mars.nasa.gov/perseverance
mars_nasa_gov/mars2020/
Everything You Need to Know About NASA's Perseverance Rover Landing on Mars
The space agency's latest rover will be arriving at Mars this week; here's what's going to happen
By Evan Ackerman
Everything You Need to Know About NASA's Perseverance Rover Landing on Mars - IEEE Spectrum
Cool details about this rover,
but wait there’s more,
How does the Mars Helicopter work?
At some point after Perseverance has landed successfully, it’ll make its way to a nice flat area and deploy the Mars Helicopter, named Ingenuity. The rover will then find a safe vantage point from which to watch as Ingenuity makes five flights over a period of 30 days. The helicopter won’t be doing any science, since its primary objective is to prove that controlled autonomous flight is possible in the Martian atmosphere, but we should end up with some cool pictures.
Where have all the science geeks gone?
Perseverance Landing Day Milestones
Step 1 | Cruise Stage Separation
Step 2 | Atmospheric Entry
Step 3 | Peak Heating
Step 4 | Peak Deceleration
Step 5 | Parachute Deployment
Step 6 | Heat Shield Separation
Step 7 | Radar Lock
Step 8 | Terrain Relative Navigation Solution
Step 9 | Backshell Separation
Step 10 | Powered Descent
Step 11 | Rover Separation/Sky Crane
Step 12 | Touchdown!
Watch the Feb. 18 Landing Broadcast
<a href="https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/timeline/landing/watch-online/">https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/timeline/landing/watch-online/</a>
Tune in live at 11:15 a.m. PST / 2:15 p.m. EST / 19:15 UTC</blockquote>
Went like a charm. Now the fun starts.
Ingenuity helicopter phones home from Mars
6:46 AM EST February 20, 2021
https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/20/world/mars-ingenuity-helicopter-update-scn-trnd/index.html
The rover landed safely on the surface of Mars Thursday after launching from Earth on July 30. Perseverance has already sent back an impressive set of images to show that she’s safe and ready to go through a “checkout” phase before starting her journey across the surface.
Now, the mission team has heard directly from the helicopter for the first time – and it’s good news.
Here you get to watch the real thing happening. They had cameras everywhere.
Science News
NASA’s Perseverance rover captured video of its own landing using a set of cameras on the back of the entry vehicle, the sky crane and the rover itself. Read more: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/v… Video: JPL-Caltech/NASA