Mars 2020 Missions

The NASA Insight lander mission (remember that mission?... been upstaged by the 2021 landers and rovers) on the surface of Mars now since late 2018 and which has a powerful and very sensitive seismometer, has discovered - through the various Marsquakes it has detected - that surprisingly, Mars has a thinner crust than thought, a large molten core and that tectonic - and even perhaps volcanic activity are still very much happening on the red planet.

Article linked below. This is a major discovery. Up until now planetary scientists believed Mars’s crust was thick and its core small and inactive.

Ingenuity Mars mini-chopper completes its 13th flight successfully.

The helicopter has now greatly surpassed all of its initial planned flight demonstrations - and since flight #8 is now acting as a scout for its mothership, the Mars Perseverance Rover.

Article about the latest Ingenuity flight here:

In other news, Perseverance has now successfully drilled and cached its first core sample from its exploration zone after an initial failed attempt.

Over at Utopia Planitia, the Chinese Mars Zhurong rover has travelled over 1 kilometre from its initial landing site, inspected the backshell and parachute landing hardware - and will explore a series of dunes and adjacent rocks but will first be placed in hibernation over the coming 6 weeks to prepare for a communications blackout between Earth and Mars due to interference from solar particles during solar conjunction.

Zhurong has successfully completed its primary mission of 100 days on Mars and returned this spectacular panorama to mark the event.

Article on the latest news from Zhurong here:

So all in all, it looks like things are going very well for both Perseverance and Zhurong. 😊

Ingenuity mini helicopter is now preparing for its 19th flight on Mars.

https://mars.nasa.gov/technology/helicopter/status/

Who could have imagined that it would still be going strong in January 2022? 😁💪💪💪

Ingenuity mini-chopper finally completed its 19th flight on Mars on February 8th after a two-month hiatus due to a large dust storm.

Link here:

And Ingenuity just keeps going, for a tech demonstration mission where the designers weren't even sure it would fly on Mars at all!

Flight 21 completed, 370 metres distance flown, making a total distance of about 4.6 kilometres (2.85 miles) flown by Ingenuity to date. 😊🚁

A January 2023 update on the various Mars surface missions:-

Perseverance rover is going great, it has now dropped a number of rock sample tubes around its current position at the foot of the ancient river delta at Jezero Crater before it begins its ascent of the delta structure in its search of signs of ancient life on the red planet.

Its sidekick that has stolen a lot of Percy’s thunder, the little Ingenuity Mars helicopter, has now made an amazing 39 flights over the surface of Mars at Jezero Crater since its maiden test flight in April 2021, clocking up an impressive 7.9 kilometres distance in flight - and with new software installed and tested in the past few flights near the foot of the ancient river delta, Ingenuity is now ready to make more challenging sorties scouting out the river delta structure as the Perseverance rover ascends the delta from the crater floor.

Recent flight image taken by Ingenuity helicopter

Sadly, the stationery lander mission Insight on Elysium Planitia has now come to an end operating on Mars after an extremely successful 4 year mission detecting over 1,400 seismic events/Marsquakes during its operation. Dust had accumulated on Insight’s solar panels to such an extent that its power was dropping significantly during 2022 and its final transmission to Earth was in mid December 2022. It has left a treasure trove of detailed seismic data that planetary scientists will spend years analysing.

Also not heard from lately is the Chinese Mars Zhurong lander at Utopia Planitia. Like Insight and the earlier Mars rovers, Zhurong relies on its solar panels for power and it is thought that, during its hibernation period in late 2022, that dust accumulation on the panels may have silenced the rover, but the Chinese are remaining tight-lipped to date and may be continuing efforts to contact their rover.

NASA’s Curiosity rover continues to climb high on Mount Sharp at Gale Crater, now in its 12th year of operation! 😊👍👍

Perseverance panorama on Sol 721.

Ingenuity has Flight # 47 in the bag! 🚁

Both the Perseverance rover and Ingenuity are making tremendous progress climbing up the ancient river delta, now 110 meters above the elevation of their February 2021 landing site.

Ingenuity is also now again scouting the terrain ahead of the rover, as it had been doing in 2022.

Ingenuity successfully carried out its 50th flight on April 13, logging a total of 11.5 kilometres flying distance since its first flight.

Just incredible! 💕👍👍

Incredible photo taken by Mars mini-chopper Ingenuity on its 51st flight, with its mothership the Perseverance rover visible on the left part of the image, parked close to the rim of Belva Crater on Sol 772.

The little Ingenuity chopper just keeps going, and going...and going! 🚁 💕

Yesterday it completed its 60th flight, logging up a total of 13.8 kilometres (8.5 miles) travelled since deployment and on flight 59, footage of which can be seen in the Youtube vid below, it broke its altitude record by ascending to 20 metres (66 feet) above the Martian surface.

Good news, but I suppose the communications outage shows us that the plucky and frankly incredible Ingenuity will not last forever.

It's wildly exceeded all expectations by the scientists - and IMO each additional flight is a bonus.