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Mars 2020 Missions
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That was simply stunning footage. The sky behind when the parachutes opened. For some reason that, for me, really hits home that this is a whole other world. For decades we have had (admittedly pretty cool) photos of rocks and the ground and the occasional space squirrel
but the quick glimpse of a sky that looks so similar to our own (But isn't) was fantastic. Hopefully the cameras are sensitive enough to get some decent night shots. Would be fantastic to see the Martian night sky in HD photos.
But yeah, video from another world. Fantastic. Hopefully future generations will see posts like this ("Video from another world") while they walk on said worlds and think how twee and cute our excitement was (Look, 540 kilobytes on one disc!!!)0 -
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The skycrane is an incredibly impressive feat of 21st Century engineering. It is very cutting edge - and has a futuristic vibe to it like robotic vacuum cleaners, lawnmowers, self drive cars etc.
The fact that it has performed flawlessly twice in a row on Mars is a testament to the engineers who designed and built the thing. The Americans have got very good at successfully putting hardware on Mars. 0 -
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Wonderful news from NASA: after completing its fourth successful test flight on April 30, the little Mars Ingenuity helicopter is to have its initial test mission extended for another month, where engineers at NASA will command the mini-chopper to fly further and higher than previous tests, to see if Ingenuity can act as a “scout” for the Perseverance rover.
Article here:
https://www.npr.org/2021/05/01/992739491/nasa-makes-new-plans-for-ingenuity-helicopter-on-mars?t=1619998883183
Ingenuity in mid-flight, as seen by the Perseverance rover
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Meanwhile, on the other side of the planet, the Chinese Zhurong lander and rover made a successful landing just over a week ago. This makes China only the third nation, after the a USA and Russia, to achieve a successful soft landing on Mars.*
Zhurong’s successful landing means that now there are four active landers on Mars: NASA’s Curiosity that landed in 2012, NASA’s InSight seismic detection lander (2018), Perseverance rover and Ingenuity helicopter in February of this year and now Zhurong. Well done to China!
It has taken a few days for the first images to be returned from Zhurong, but here they are:
*The then Soviet Union’s Mars 3 lander made a successful soft landing back in 1971, but landed as a major dust storm was raging and ceased transmitting data after only 20 seconds, not enough to return a single image.0 -
So over two weeks have passed and no new images from the Chinese Zhurong lander.
This is getting to be very concerning...
I know the Chinese are very secretive and probably very proud to ask for help, but it does seem that unfortunately some technical issue has emerged with the rover/lander given the complete dearth of images - and they are possibly too suspicious and/or proud to ask NASA, the ESA etc who have good communication relay orbiters at Mars to ask for help.
We will just have to see what the Chinese do next.
Meanwhile, NASA’s Perseverance rover at Jezero crater is getting underway on its primary science mission to examine the geology of its landing area.0 -
JupiterKid wrote: »So over two weeks have passed and no new images from the Chinese Zhurong lander. This is getting to be very concerning...
I know the Chinese are very secretive and probably very proud to ask for help, but it does seem that unfortunately some technical issue has emerged with the rover/lander given the complete dearth of images - and they are possibly too suspicious and/or proud to ask NASA, the ESA etc who have good communication relay orbiters at Mars to ask for help.
We will just have to see what the Chinese do next.
Meanwhile, NASA’s Perseverance rover at Jezero crater is getting underway on its primary science mission to examine the geology of its landing area.
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter took pictures of the Chinese landing site on the 6th June which shows the rover is off the lander and has moved a bit to the south of it so it appears to be alive.
https://www.uahirise.org/hipod/ESP_069665_2055
Why we have heard nothing from China is anyone's guess but seems to be their usual secretive approach to these things which is a bit sad really when compared to NASAs open approach.
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