Perseverance Mars mission thread

[BABAR]

For 11 minutes, Perseverance was both dead, and alive. As per Schrödinger's cat

Because it actually landed (or crashed) on Mars 11 minutes before the radio signals of the landing moment were received, and we then "observed" the cat's (rover's) fate.

That's been true of every mission away from Earth, and always will be. And sometimes the time delay from Mars to Earth will be even worse than 11 minutes (The fantastic movie "The Martian" kinda ignored that for sake of not getting bogged down, the book did of course include the delays).

For those wondering "Schrödinger whuuut?, this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schrödinger's_cat

So much for first person flying. Given time delay between 3 and 20 minutes depending on position of Earth and Mars (actually longer when they are on opposite sides of the sun, since I guess there will need to be a relay station or stations as we won’t be able to transmit THROUGH the sun), pretty much I guess they will send a prerecorded flight plan, the Ingenuity helicopter will fly the plan, and mess age back whether it worked or not and if the craft is still fly able for another round.

and people think “latency” in online video games is bad!

 

[BABAR]

Perseverence “poop” retrieval, a decade long process.

Perseverance will be collecting soil sample and putting them in “cache” containers which it will drop on the Martian surface behind it.

These will later be picked up by another lander and launched from the surface into orbit around Mars to be retrieved by a satellite orbiting Mars.

The satellite will then launch them inward across the solar system to Earth orbit.

Once in orbit around Earth, an Earth Orbit satellite will capture them and package them for a return through the atmosphere back to the Earth Surface.

estimated date to get back to Earth? 2031.

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-53553623

 

[dhbarr]

according to the Musk Doctrine, there is NO earthly agency that has any authority on Mars

“For Services provided on Mars, or in transit to Mars via Starship or other colonisation spacecraft, the parties recognise Mars as a free planet and that no Earth-based government has authority or sovereignty over Martian activities.

https://rtd.rt.com/stories/law-on-mars/

Elon Labe

 

[kuririn]

estimated date to get back to Earth? 2031.

Shoot, by then people will be riding Starship and bringing back their own samples.
If Elon has his way.
Reminds me of a sci-fi story I once read. Don't remember the title but the plot went like this:
A crew is put into stasis for a 100 year journey to a nearby star system.
When they awaken from stasis they find the star system inhabited.......by humans!
In 100 years technology advanced so rapidly that humans had already travelled to and established colonies there.
Blew my mind.

 

[Onebadhawk]

I heard they were going to record onboard video of the descent... I can't wait to see that.

Heck yes,,
I was thinking the same thing..
Now that'll be some cool video, lol..

Hi everyone,

Notice how the Jet Propulsion Laboratory conducted the entire flight using metric measurements -- distances in metres or kilometres, and speed in metres/second or kilometres/hour.

Stanley

If I remember correctly Nasa lost a mission because of someone not doing the conversion from SAE to metric correctly..
A very simple mistake that cost an entire mission..
I just don't remember exactly what it was that happened, or on what mission..

But anywhoosie,,
I'd venture a guess that's why everything is just done in the metric system and not ever converted at all..

Teddy

 

[Marc_G]

Heck yes,,
I was thinking the same thing..
Now that'll be some cool video, lol..



If I remember correctly Nasa lost a mission because of someone not doing the conversion from SAE to metric correctly..
A very simple mistake that cost an entire mission..
I just don't remember exactly what it was that happened, or on what mission..

But anywhoosie,,
I'd venture a guess that's why everything is just done in the metric system and not ever converted at all..

Teddy

Yeah. That would have been the Mars Climate Observer. Rather large oops.

https://www.wired.com/2010/11/1110mars-climate-observer-report/

 

[Onebadhawk]

Yeah. That would have been the Mars Climate Observer. Rather large oops.

https://www.wired.com/2010/11/1110mars-climate-observer-report/

Was that the mission ???
It was that long ago ?? 99..

Such a simple mistake..

Teddy

 

[kuririn]

New picture. From the Sky Crane looking down during the descent.

 

[Marc_G]

I missed the briefing today but that is a hell of a picture.

I presume this is one frame, and eventually we get a whole movie of the entire landing sequence from this camera? That will be the coolest thing ever.

 

[Cape Byron]

I presume this is one frame, and eventually we get a whole movie of the entire landing sequence from this camera?

It's being downloaded via Australia's broadband feed, so slightly faster than dial-up. Expect the movie in August.

 

[OverTheTop]

There is a data bottleneck in getting information from Mars. The DSN only has limited capability and must service all missions on all planets, the sun and anywhere else in space. At least they are using MRO as a data cache and relay and can get decent data rates when the orbiter is visible from Earth. This is becoming a bigger problem as more countries become active and expect the DSN to service their missions.

For a look at their current links, see here:
https://eyes.nasa.gov/dsn/dsn.html

 

[dhbarr]

Man, if only somebody was putting a broadband constellation in space....

 

[Marc_G]

https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/20/world/mars-ingenuity-helicopter-update-scn-trnd/index.html

 

[Onebadhawk]

New picture. From the Sky Crane looking down during the descent.
View attachment 451422

What an insanely cool pic..
Man, I can't wait to see that vid..
Is the idea to get this vid is having to carry the weight of that camera and bluetooth the data to the rover
before the skycrane flys a safe distance from the rover to - shall we sat, land abruptly..
So that's the entire penalty, the weight of a small camera and it's bluetooth device ??
And is Bluetooth the methode of transmitting the data to the rover before the connection is lost ??
Hey,
That pic doesn't look the quality / detail of the others taken from the rover..
Bluetooth it must be then, yes ??

Teddy

 

[viney266]

I have always enjoyed anything "rocket", but it is truly wonderful to be excited about something we are doing.

 

[Marc_G]

I can't speak authoritatively, but I believe the skycrane/rocket platform has several cameras, and the data will be retrievable later. I had assumed the platform will transmit the data to Perseverance at some point in the future. I think it is designed to touch down "gently enough" to allow later data retrieval.

 

[Marc_G]

Here's the main link to the picture shown above:

https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-s-perseverance-rover-sends-sneak-peek-of-mars-landing
It doesn't discuss the particulars of the data transfer. Notice that one of the connections in the picture is an untensioned umbilical; perhaps Perseverance was receiving the data feed via cabling in this umbilical, which suggests that the video would stop at the point where it detached to allow the descent stage to fly off to safe crash site.

 

[Marc_G]

Google turns out to be an amazing thing:
https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/spacecraft/rover/cameras/

 

[kuririn]

From MarcG's link:



Looks like that picture was taken from the Descent Stage "Down Look" camera.
I read somewhere that the video(s) of the descent may become available on Monday.
Fingers crossed.

 

[RonaldBeal]

So technically, we just landed a nuclear powered aircraft carrier on mars!

 

[KC3KNM]

Was that the mission ???
It was that long ago ?? 99..

Such a simple mistake..

Teddy

https://spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace/robotic-exploration/why-the-mars-probe-went-off-course
Maybe not that simple...

 

[user 13]

For 11 minutes, Perseverance was both dead, and alive. As per Schrödinger's cat

Because it actually landed (or crashed) on Mars 11 minutes before the radio signals of the landing moment were received, and we then "observed" the cat's (rover's) fate.

That's been true of every mission away from Earth, and always will be. And sometimes the time delay from Mars to Earth will be even worse than 11 minutes (The fantastic movie "The Martian" kinda ignored that for sake of not getting bogged down, the book did of course include the delays).

For those wondering "Schrödinger whuuut?, this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schrödinger's_cat

I always love a Schrödinger's cat reference!

 

[Jimmy]

I was just joking

I thought you were serious....

 

[Marc_G]

It amazes me what we can do with math. Here's a picture from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which had its camera pointed in just the right direction at the right time, to capture an image of Perseverance under its chute, descending toward the surface.

https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/jpl/hirise-captured-perseverance-during-descent-to-mars
And here's a high res hazcam shot... beautiful, and it's from basically the lowest resolution camera on the rover.

https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/jpl/perseverance-s-first-full-color-look-at-mars

 

[Sooner Boomer]

Video from landing is supposed to be released by NASA on Monday.

 

[Marc_G]

Question: Is there a page somewhere with the plans for each sol and any short notes on how those plans went?

I've been scrounging here:
https://www.nasa.gov/perseveranceand here:
https://mars.nasa.gov
But haven't found a simple play by play. I had read somewhere or heard that yesterday they were planning to deploy the instrument boom... how did it go? Did they send the commands? Did they get a response? Would they have expected to so quickly?

Basically, just looking for a day by day, play by play. I imagine there is one somewhere, I just haven't found it yet.

 

[davel]

I don't think you will find any such listing, as the details depend on how things develop. Catch the NASA news conference tomorrow (2/22) at 2pm EST.

 

[Marc_G]

Press conference started

OMG such awesome video!

 

[kuririn]

I feel like I just landed on Mars.
Great video.
They also showed some panorama pictures stitched from the stills:

 

[kuririn]

Here's the video: