#with rovers such as spirit and opportunity and curiosity. and the phoenix lander

[verdemoth]

i cant post Tune without also posting Odyssey. do not separate.

Odyssey is an engineer, formerly the director of Mission Control, and before even that e did field work. Now, e’s supposedly retired from all duties, but Odyssey refuses to leave. E wont let the new owners run the team into the ground. (and e’s still holding onto some distant hope of finding es best friend alive, or at least closure)

-> Originally Odyssey was a field researcher alongside es queerplatonic partner Tune in their 20s, until the risks of such work became apparent. E then went on to develop systems to communicate with and coordinate the research team and monitor the Otherworld from safely on the ‘reality’ side of the portal. E established Mission Control, and led it for decades.

-> Tune and Odyssey were very close for a very long time, having met in their school years. They were best friends, partners for life, two halves of a whole. It’s been some years now since Tune’s disappearance, and Odyssey’s mostly come to terms with it, but still feels his absence keenly.

-> Odyssey’s a generally kind individual but not particularly nice. E’s gruff, immensely stubborn, with a mean sarcastic streak. Some coworkers might describe em as cantankerous. But at the end of the day e’s well-intentioned and altruistic.

-> Odyssey is very, VERY bitter about the investors who bought ownership of the team from the original founders a couple years back. E hates them. E’s just WAITING for the chance to prove there’s something unscrupulous happening, e can FEEL it. E hasn’t had results yet but the vibes are rancid.

-> Though formally retired, Odyssey continues to do much of the same work e’s been doing for decades, out of spite and because e trusts few people with the systems e built. E adamantly refuses to cooperate with anyone associated with the company, which is probably directly related to es early ‘retirement’. Odyssey’s not happy about it and won’t do them any favours.

-> Odyssey is only middle aged but e feels so much older. E’s so tired. And so worried. E hopes for the best but is always prepared for the worst.

-> Odyssey’s role as director was succeeded by Maven, who e mentored. Odyssey treats them as a ward and as a friend. E respects and trusts them, but…… When the Storm hit, it was one of Maven’s first missions directing with little input from Odyssey. It was supposed to be that, anyway, before that disaster. Odyssey doesn’t blame them for what happened, but but can’t seem to talk them out of beating themself up over it. Directing the EEG is no longer Odyssey’s job so e tries to step back and let Maven make their own decisions, but they’ve obviously not dealt well with the pressure, and Odyssey can’t leave well enough alone. E has a tendency to step in and take over es old duties at the first sign of trouble in a misguided attempt to shield Maven from the trauma of handling another crisis. E doesn’t mean to imply that they’re not capable, but unfortunately they are not helping Maven’s shattered confidence and fear of making mistakes by taking control from them.

-> Odyssey is legally blind, and though es glasses can help em make out some shapes in the right conditions, in unfamiliar spaces and bad lighting e utilizes a cane to get a feel for es surroundings. While es poor eyesight is likely hereditary, e became an amputee following a severe injury on es last field mission. E opts not to use any prosthetics, finding them uncomfortable and unwieldy. E’s often accompanied by one or both of the spider shaped robots e designed and programmed to assist the exploration team, which have been retired from the field as well since suffering some damage in the Storm. Odyssey is very fond of them.

-> The larger robot, Marie, was named after Odyssey’s cousin Mariner, who also worked for the EEG for a time. The two used to be close, but have had a falling out coinciding with Tune’s presumed death and Mariner’s retirement. Xe pushed for Odyssey to quit as well, but despite xer desperation xe wouldn’t confess why xe was so adamant about it.

-> The loss of Tune hit Odyssey very hard, and e’s become quite reclusive. E tends to stick to es room when not doing other work, and would spend a lot of time alone if not sought out by the other people who are close with em.

-> Spirit, Tune’s sibling, can probably best understand what Odyssey’s going though. The two have always gotten along well, having met through Tune. When Odyssey was injured, they requested Spirit join the team in es place, providing a glowing recommendation to the then owners. E’s always thought highly of Spirit, as a skilled and reliable member of the team (and someone e could trust to keep an eye on Tune where e couldn’t).

-> Spirit’s been different, recently. Odyssey has slowly tried opening up to them to talk about their shared loss, after es initial attempts to distance emself from the team in es grief. But any attempt seems stilted and awkward, so usually Odyssey never gets around to that part, and sticks to shallow small talk and talking At them about other problems. Honestly e just wants their company, and e feels they could use it, too. Odyssey worries for Spirit’s physical wellbeing in the Otherworld, and their mental wellbeing in the wake of losing their sibling. But they’re still capable of looking after themself, so e doesn’t push too hard. E just figures… well. Spirit probably needs the same kind of help e does, and e’s trying to be that for them.

-> If there’s a coworker that Odyssey really Does Not get along with, it’s Curiosity. In the past they’ve had a standard and respectful relationship. But with Tune M.I.A. and the EEG’s new ownership, Odyssey’s being phased out of the team though circumstance and es own actions and e’s feeling quite frustrated. E projects a lot of those frustrations into Curiosity, the new de facto leader of the field team and symbolic of the changes Odyssey rejects. Curiosity, for her part, isn’t keen on sitting around and taking flak from Odyssey.

-> Mostly they try to avoid each other, and that turns out fine. But when they do interact, Odyssey is… difficult about it. E will nitpick any plan of hers to test how it holds up, always double-checks her work, tries to pull rank/seniority regardless of relevance.. all in all, nothing malicious, but instead unreasonably hypercritical. E claims e’s only making sure she’s up to handle whatever the Otherworld throws at them next.

-> Phoenix on the other hand is a long time friend of Odyssey and Tune, having also met them through school before he dropped out. They’ve been a sturdy pillar of support for Odyssey through es grief, and regularly checks up on em to make sure es looking after emself. Though Phoenix, like Curiosity, is ambivalent about the new ownership, he is unlike Curiosity in that he is in good standing with Odyssey and is privy to sooo many rants about it. They talk often. Phoenix is really the only other person Odyssey trusts with maintaining the systems e built.

-> Phoenix and Odyssey had a brief romantic fling as young adults, which Odyssey now finds very amusing. Even moreso because Phoenix is kind of embarrassed about being ‘something of a headstrong dumbass’ at that age, in their own words. It’s one of the few things Odyssey and Curiosity (who also once dated Phoenix) can agree upon. It’s all in good fun.

[kaiyves-backup]

4, 8, 12, and 13 for the space ask game?

(I had an almost-complete answer but I closed the tab by accident and it got wiped. #^£*!)

(From this list)

4 - underrated mission(s)

I feel like the Phoenix Mars Lander gets overlooked in the lurch these days despite the fact that this was the mission that first found water ice in Martian soil. It wasn’t a rover and it was a polar mission never intended to last more than one season, so Phoenix didn’t have the time to build up the kind of long-term following that Spirit, Opportunity, Curiosity, et al. had, but as someone who was there visiting the website every day, it made for one incredible summer and fall.

Phoenix was the first mission I followed avidly from launch to end of mission. It was the first Mars mission to be photographed by an orbiter during parachute descent and as the first to have a first-person Twitter account from Day 1, it was one of the catalysts of the Space Tweeps movement and the 2010s renaissance in space fandom.

And the mission patch was amazing:

8 - fave space book

Of all? I don’t think I could pick just one, but among my favorites I’ll say that Brian Floca’s Moonshot: The Flight of Apollo 11 is the best Apollo book to come out of the 40th anniversary celebrations. It’s beautifully-illustrated Sweet Dreams Fuel that both children and adults can enjoy and I’ll always recommend it.

12 - what got you into space?

In my 5th grade science class, we watched a documentary about the Voyager probes that featured the multilingual greetings from the Golden Record. They played Nick Sagan’s English-language “Greetings from the children of Planet Earth!” recording and it absolutely blew my mind to imagine this little boy’s voice going out into infinity, that human hands had made this thing and sent it out beyond the planets, with the anticipation no human hands would ever touch it again.

13 - who would win in a fistfight: el*n m*sk or j*ff b*zos? you must explain your reasoning.

I don’t care to devote any brainpower to this, but fortunately I don’t have to, because there are already two r/WhoWouldWin threads about this very subject.

[rocks-in-space]

Just enough space to fit all successful Mars landers and rovers!

(Sorry Ingenuity helicopter; I do really love your name though!)

[jcmarchi]

Landing On Mars: A Tricky Feat! - Technology Org

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/landing-on-mars-a-tricky-feat-technology-org/

Landing On Mars: A Tricky Feat! - Technology Org

The Perseverance rover and Ingenuity helicopter landed in Mars’s Jezero crater on February 18, 2021, NASA’s latest mission to explore the red planet. Landing on Mars is an incredibly difficult feat that has challenged engineers for decades: while missions like Curiosity have succeeded, its surface is littered with the wreckage of many failures as well. Why is landing on Mars so difficult?

Illustrations of the Entry, Descent, and Landing (EDL) sequences for Viking in 1976, NASA

Mars presents a unique problem to potential landers as it possesses a relatively large mass and a thin, but not insubstantial, atmosphere. The atmosphere is thick enough that spacecraft are stuffed inside a streamlined aeroshell sporting a protective heat shield to prevent burning up upon entry – but that same atmosphere is not thick enough to rely on parachutes alone for a safe landing, since they can’t catch sufficient air to slow down quickly enough. This is even worse for larger explorers like Perseverance, weighing in at 2,260 lbs (1,025 kg). Fortunately, engineers have crafted some ingenious landing methods over the decades to allow their spacecraft to survive what is called Entry, Descent, and Landing (EDL).

The Viking landers touched down on Mars in 1976 using heat shields, parachutes, and retrorockets. Despite using large parachutes, the large Viking landers fired retrorockets at the end to land at a safe speed. This complex combination has been followed by almost every mission since, but subsequent missions have innovated in the landing segment. The 1997 Mars Pathfinder mission added airbags in conjunction with parachutes and retrorockets to safely bounce its way to a landing on the Martian surface. Then three sturdy “petals” ensured the lander was pushed upright after landing on an ancient floodplain. The Opportunity and Spirit missions used a very similar method to place their rovers on the Martian surface in 2004. Phoenix (2008) and Insight (2018) actually utilized Viking-style landings.

Perseverance Rover’s Entry, Descent and Landing Profile: This illustration shows the events that occur in the final minutes of the nearly seven-month journey that NASA’s Perseverance rover takes to Mars. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The large and heavy Curiosity rover required extra power at the end to safely land the car-sized rover, and so the daring “Sky Crane” deployment system was successfully used in 2012. After an initial descent using a massive heat shield and parachute, powerful retrorockets finished slowing down the spacecraft to about two miles per hour. The Sky Crane then safely lowered the rover down to the Martian surface using a strong cable. With its job done, the Sky Crane flew off and crash-landed a safe distance away. Having proved the efficacy of the Sky Crane system, NASA used this same method to attempt a safe landing for Perseverance in February 2021!

Source: National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Mars gifts – the best space gifts from the Red Planet, ranging from Mars-themed clothes to genuine, certified meteorites from Mars.

[spacenutspod]

3 Min Read Landing On Mars: A Tricky Feat! Perseverance Rover’s Entry, Descent and Landing Profile: This illustration shows the events that occur in the final minutes of the nearly seven-month journey that NASA’s Perseverance rover takes to Mars. In honor of Ingenuity’s final flight on The Red Planet, learn from Dave Prosper about what it takes to land on Mars. The Perseverance rover and Ingenuity helicopter landed in Mars’s Jezero crater on February 18, 2021, NASA’s latest mission to explore the red planet. Landing on Mars is an incredibly difficult feat that has challenged engineers for decades: while missions like Curiosity have succeeded, its surface is littered with the wreckage of many failures as well. Why is landing on Mars so difficult? Mars presents a unique problem to potential landers as it possesses a relatively large mass and a thin, but not insubstantial, atmosphere. The atmosphere is thick enough that spacecraft are stuffed inside a streamlined aeroshell sporting a protective heat shield to prevent burning up upon entry – but that same atmosphere is not thick enough to rely on parachutes alone for a safe landing, since they can’t catch sufficient air to slow down quickly enough. This is even worse for larger explorers like Perseverance, weighing in at 2,260 lbs (1,025 kg). Fortunately, engineers have crafted some ingenious landing methods over the decades to allow their spacecraft to survive what is called Entry, Descent, and Landing (EDL). Illustrations of the Entry, Descent, and Landing (EDL) sequences for Viking in 1976, NASA The Viking landers touched down on Mars in 1976 using heat shields, parachutes, and retrorockets. Despite using large parachutes, the large Viking landers fired retrorockets at the end to land at a safe speed. This complex combination has been followed by almost every mission since, but subsequent missions have innovated in the landing segment. The 1997 Mars Pathfinder mission added airbags in conjunction with parachutes and retrorockets to safely bounce its way to a landing on the Martian surface. Then three sturdy “petals” ensured the lander was pushed into an upright position after landing on an ancient floodplain. The Opportunity and Spirit missions used a very similar method to place their rovers on the Martian surface in 2004. Phoenix (2008) and Insight (2018) actually utilized Viking-style landings. Perseverance Rover’s Entry, Descent and Landing Profile: This illustration shows the events that occur in the final minutes of the nearly seven-month journey that NASA’s Perseverance rover takes to Mars. NASA/JPL-Caltech The large and heavy Curiosity rover required extra power at the end to safely land the car-sized rover, and so the daring “Sky Crane” deployment system was successfully used in 2012. After an initial descent using a massive heat shield and parachute, powerful retrorockets finished slowing down the spacecraft to about two miles per hour. The Sky Crane then safely lowered the rover down to the Martian surface using a strong cable. Its job done, the Sky Crane then flew off and crash-landed a safe distance away. Having proved the efficacy of the Sky Crane system, NASA used this same method to attempt a safe landing for Perseverance in February 2021! To rediscover the Mars 2020 mission, visit: https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/ Originally posted by Dave Prosper: December 2021 Last Updated by Kat Troche: January 2024

[marsmissiontournament]

Methodology

As others have alluded to, creating tournaments is a kind of damned of you do, damned if you don’t situation where its impossible for everyone to be happy (and sometimes people are. quite rude about it) so I decided to say ‘fuck it’ and do whatever I wanted.

More detailed methodology below

I haven’t seeded the tournament because that would involve me having to judgment call how popular I thought any given mission is (is Perseverance more popular because it’s new? Or is Opportunity more popular because everyone feels nostalgic for it? What about Mars 2 vs 3?) and that sounds awful, frankly. I also didn’t go entirely randomly because I wanted some control over what I was doing.

I strongly suspect rovers/landers are going to be more popular than orbiters/flybys, given a demographic of probably few Mars missions people. (If I were to run this tournament at a conference like LPSC I might see a difference.) So I tried to split up rovers/landers so they probably won’t be eliminated immediately. I also like the idea of having a final matchup between the MER rovers (Spirit and Opportunity) or Curiosity and Perseverance, so I made sure that was possible. I tried also to have a handful of matchups that have a more assured outcome, and ones that could maybe go either way. This is partly due to the mismatch between landers/rovers and orbiters/flybys, so it wasn’t possible to have entirely matches of surface mission vs space mission. There are some instances where ‘twin’ missions split up, as in the case of Spirit and Opportunity, and some cases where I wanted to quickly eliminate one or the other of the ‘twins’, as in the case of the Viking missions and Mariner 6 & 7. Some of the initial matches I put together based on theme (failed orbiter missions that turned into flybys, spacecraft going somewhere else but stopping by Mars), or just based on reasons that are relevant to me and I’m not going to get into (Hope vs Phoenix).

And that was about all the effort I wanted to put into designing the tournament, because I have an actual job where people actually will peer review my methodology.  Enjoy!

[awerobotics]

How Robots are Being Used in Space Exploration

Space exploration is one of the most fascinating areas of research that humans have ever embarked upon. It's an incredible undertaking, as we seek to understand the vast and mysterious universe beyond our planet. While it's an exciting time to be alive, with breakthroughs in science and technology happening every day, the challenges of space exploration are daunting. That's why scientists and researchers are turning to an unlikely ally in their quest to explore space: robots. Robots are becoming increasingly essential to space exploration, as they can carry out tasks that are too difficult, too dangerous, or too expensive for humans to perform. The use of robots in space missions has been increasing over the years, and they are expected to play an even more significant role in the future. In this article, we'll take a closer look at how robots are being used in space exploration, particularly on Mars and other planets, as well as the future of robotics in space exploration. Robots on Mars Robots have played a significant role in the exploration of Mars, and several different types of robots have been used to gather data about the planet's geology, atmosphere, and environment. The following are some examples of the different types of robots used on Mars: - Rovers: Mars rovers are robotic vehicles that are designed to move around on the planet's surface. They are equipped with a variety of scientific instruments and cameras to help gather data about the planet. For example, the Mars Exploration Rover (MER) mission sent two rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, to Mars in 2003. The rovers were designed to explore the surface of Mars and collect data on its geology, atmosphere, and climate. - Landers: Mars landers are robotic spacecraft that are designed to land on the planet's surface and perform scientific experiments. For example, the Mars Phoenix lander was sent to Mars in 2008 to study the planet's soil and search for signs of microbial life. The lander was equipped with a robotic arm that was used to scoop up soil samples and analyze them. - Orbital Probes: Mars Orbital Probes are robotic spacecraft that orbit the planet to study its atmosphere, surface, and climate. They are equipped with a variety of instruments, including cameras, spectrometers, and radar systems. For example, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) was launched in 2005 and is still in operation today. The MRO has been used to study the planet's surface, atmosphere, and subsurface, as well as to search for signs of water and possible landing sites for future missions. The tasks performed by these robots on Mars are numerous and varied. Here are a few examples. - Analyzing soil and rock samples: Rovers and landers are equipped with scientific instruments that can analyze the composition of the soil and rocks on Mars. For example, the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission sent the Curiosity rover to Mars in 2012. The rover is equipped with a laser that can vaporize rocks and analyze their composition. - Mapping the planet's surface: Orbital probes can create detailed maps of the planet's surface, including its topography and geology. For example, the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) mission, which operated from 1996 to 2006, created a detailed map of the planet's surface using a laser altimeter. - Searching for signs of life: Some missions have been designed specifically to search for signs of microbial life on Mars. For example, the Viking landers, which were launched in 1976, were the first missions to search for signs of life on Mars. While the results were inconclusive, these missions paved the way for future missions that continue to search for signs of life. The benefits of using robots on Mars are numerous. Here are a few examples. - Safety: Robots can perform tasks that would be dangerous for humans, such as exploring dangerous terrain or handling hazardous materials. - Efficiency: Robots can work around the clock and don't require rest or sleep, which makes them more efficient at performing tasks than humans. - Cost-effectiveness: Sending robots to Mars is less expensive than sending humans, as robots don't require life support systems, food, or other supplies. Robots have been an invaluable tool in the exploration of Mars, and their use is expected to continue in the future. The ability of robots to perform tasks that would be impossible or too dangerous for humans makes them an asset in space exploration. The next section will explore how robots are being used on other planets, such as Venus and Jupiter. Robots on Other Planets While Mars has been the focus of many robotic missions, other planets in our solar system are also being explored using robotic technology. Here are some examples of robots being used on other planets. - Venus: Venus is the hottest planet in our solar system, with surface temperatures that can melt lead. Due to its harsh conditions, robots have been used to explore Venus rather than humans. The Soviet Union sent several missions to Venus in the 1970s and 1980s, including the Venera and Vega missions. These missions used landers, balloons, and flybys to gather data on the planet's atmosphere, geology, and environment. - Jupiter: Jupiter is the largest planet in our solar system, and several missions have been sent to study the gas giant and its moons. For example, the Galileo mission was launched in 1989 and orbited Jupiter for eight years. The mission studied Jupiter's atmosphere, magnetosphere, and moons, including Europa, which is believed to have a subsurface ocean. The challenges of exploring other planets are significant, and robots are being used to overcome many of these challenges. Here are a few examples: - Harsh conditions: Many of the planets in our solar system have extreme environments that would be difficult or impossible for humans to survive in. Robots can withstand these conditions and continue to gather data. - Remote locations: Some planets, such as Jupiter, are so far from Earth that it would take years for a spacecraft to reach them. Robots can be sent to these planets to gather data over an extended period. - Limited resources: Sending humans to other planets requires a significant number of resources, including food, water, and oxygen. Robots don't require these resources and can operate for extended periods without human intervention. The potential benefits of exploring other planets are enormous. Here are a few examples: - Scientific discovery: Exploring other planets can help us learn more about the history and evolution of our solar system, as well as the potential for life on other planets. - Resource exploration: Some planets, such as Mars, may have resources that could be used to support human exploration or even colonization in the future. - Inspiration: Space exploration has the potential to inspire the next generation of scientists, engineers, and explorers, as well as the public. Robots are being used to explore other planets in our solar system, and their use is likely to continue in the future. The challenges of exploring other planets are significant, and robots are being used to overcome many of these challenges. The potential benefits of exploring other planets are enormous, and we are only scratching the surface of what we can learn from these missions. The next section will explore the future of robotics in space exploration. The Future of Robotics in Space Exploration The future of space exploration will undoubtedly involve an increasing reliance on robotics technology. As advancements in robotics technology continue, robots will become more sophisticated, more capable, and more autonomous. Here are some of the ways in which robotics technology is expected to impact space exploration in the future: - Increased autonomy: Robots will become increasingly autonomous and able to make decisions on their own, without human intervention. This will allow them to perform more complex tasks and operate in environments that would be too dangerous for humans. - Advanced sensors: Future robots will be equipped with more advanced sensors, including cameras, spectrometers, and other scientific instruments. These sensors will allow them to gather more detailed and accurate data about the planets they are exploring. - Multi-robot systems: Future missions may involve multiple robots working together to accomplish a common goal. For example, a team of robots may work together to build a habitat on Mars or to explore a complex geological formation. - 3D printing: 3D printing technology is expected to play a significant role in future space missions, as it will allow robots to print tools and other equipment on demand, without the need for resupply missions from Earth. The potential risks and benefits of relying more heavily on robots in space exploration are significant. Here are a few examples: - Risks: The increasing reliance on robots could lead to a loss of human expertise in space exploration. It could also raise ethical and legal concerns, such as who is responsible if a robot malfunctions and causes damage. - Benefits: Relying more heavily on robots could lead to more efficient and cost-effective space missions. It could also lead to new discoveries and insights that would be impossible to obtain with human explorers alone. The future of space exploration will undoubtedly involve an increasing reliance on robotics technology. As robots become more sophisticated and capable, they will be able to perform more complex tasks and operate in environments that would be too dangerous for humans. While there are risks and benefits to relying more heavily on robots in space exploration, they will play an increasingly significant role in our quest to explore and understand the universe. Conclusion Robots are revolutionizing the way we explore space, and their use is expected to increase significantly in the future. From rovers on Mars to landers on Venus, robots are allowing us to gather data about our solar system and the universe beyond. As robotics technology continues to advance, robots will become more sophisticated, more capable, and more autonomous, allowing them to perform more complex tasks and operate in environments that would be too dangerous for humans. While there are risks and benefits to relying more heavily on robots in space exploration, they will play an increasingly significant role in our quest to explore and understand the universe. The use of robots has already led to numerous discoveries and insights, and the potential for future discoveries is enormous. From the search for signs of life to the exploration of new resources and the inspiration of future generations, the benefits of space exploration are vast and far-reaching. In conclusion, the use of robots in space exploration is a testament to the ingenuity and creativity of human beings. By combining our knowledge of science and engineering with advanced robotics technology, we can achieve feats that were once thought impossible. As we continue to explore our solar system and the universe beyond, robots will undoubtedly play an increasingly significant role, allowing us to unlock the mysteries of the universe and gain a deeper understanding of our place within it. Read the full article

[rabbithaver]

i fucking LOVE mars and i LOVE curiosity and spirit and opportunity and phoenix and sojourner and pathfinder and viking !!!!!! and im so excited for InSight and 2020!!!!!!

[sciencespies]

Mic Drop: Mars Rover Will Record Lasers, Landing And Otherworldly Sounds

https://sciencespies.com/news/mic-drop-mars-rover-will-record-lasers-landing-and-otherworldly-sounds/

Mic Drop: Mars Rover Will Record Lasers, Landing And Otherworldly Sounds

After “seven minutes of terror” to land, NASA’s Perseverance rover will be wired for sound on the … [+] Martian surface.

NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA’s next Mars mission will literally be wired for sound.

The Perseverance rover is set to launch no earlier than July 30 for an ambitious mission to the Red Planet that includes launching a helicopter. This time, the hope is ardent followers will literally be able to listen in to the rover’s activities.

The rover will in fact carry two microphones. One will be on the ambitious entry, descent and landing system designed to carry Perseverance safely through the atmosphere to the Martian surface. After a Curiosity rover-like “seven minutes of terror” landing on Feb. 18, 2021, viewers can watch a “sky crane” deploy Perseverance through on-board cameras, and listen in to the sounds of wind, weather and rover through the attached microphone.

The other Perseverance microphone will be wired to the laser-beaming SuperCam instrument designed to zap rocks to learn more about their composition. Scientists expect that listeners will hear a “pop-pop-pop” sound every time the laser fires in search of organic compounds, or the building blocks of life.

Together, the microphones will transform Mars exploration into a 4-D experience, between the cameras that are diligently recording Perseverance’s movements across Jezero Crater, and the sounds that are flowing in as the rover moves from place to place on the Red Planet. What’s more, it’s not the first time humans tried to listen in on Mars.

NASA’s Phoenix lander planned to carry a microphone to the north pole of Mars.

NASA

The Planetary Society says that no fewer than three missions have tried to bring microphones to Mars, but all those previous attempts failed. The repeated, futile efforts show just how hard it is to deploy technology on a distant planet, even a planet that we have visited dozens of times between probes and landers.

The first known mic flew on the infamous NASA Mars Polar Lander, which began to make a descent to Mars in December 1999. During landing, unfortunate controllers discovered the spacecraft abruptly stopped sending data back to Earth. A technical error resulted in the lander shutting off its engines far too early and crashing into the surface, destroying the mission and any hopes of doing science.

The French space agency CNES decided to follow up the effort with its ambitious NetLander mission, which was supposed to launch in 2007. NetLander would be the first time four identical landers would alight in different areas of the Red Planet at the same time, to get a sense of the planet’s atmosphere, surface and interior. Unfortunately, funding difficulties canceled the effort three years before launch.

France’s NetLander would have landed mics at multiple points on Mars, but it was canceled before … [+] launch.

CNES

The last mic attempt (or would it be, mic drop?) actually did make it onto the surface on NASA’s Phoenix mission, which made a daring polar landing in 2007 to learn more about the history of Martian water — a key in understanding the chances for life on the surface. But the mic was never turned on. Engineers found a problem with the mic that could affect the success of more vital systems, and for spacecraft safety reasons they deactivated the mic before landing.

Incredibly, NASA’s other rovers never had a mic on them. This means that the Spirit and Opportunity rovers that lasted years on the surface and ranged for miles showing us signs of ancient water never could bring us the sounds of Mars. Curiosity, which landed in 2012 and is doggedly climbing a mountain while documenting the view in amazing pictures, is similarly silent. But perhaps this mic on Perseverance could usher in a new revolution of sounds of the solar system.

With so many of us stuck at home these days amid pandemic quarantine measures, virtually traveling the universe probably has no better appeal. Experiencing the sights and sounds of distant lands on Earth through radio, television and Internet has inspired many people to see those places for themselves. Perhaps listening to mics on Mars will encourage youngsters to study the universe and make valuable scientific discoveries that will improve life for all of us.

#News

[frankkjonestx]

How upcoming missions to Mars will help predict its wild dust storms

It started with a spring breeze. The Opportunity rover watched with its robotic eyes as the wind blowing through Perseverance Valley kicked puffs of rusty Mars dust into the air. In more than 14 Earth years of exploring the Red Planet, the rover had seen plenty of this kind of weather.

But the dust grew thicker. Small flecks swirled like wildfire smoke through the atmosphere, turning sun-filled midday into dusk, then night. Within a week, the dust storm spanned more than twice the area of the contiguous United States and eventually encircled the whole planet, allowing just 5 percent of the normal amount of light to reach Opportunity’s solar panels. The rover went quiet.

“It got so bad so quickly, we didn’t even have time to react,” says Keri Bean of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. Bean had joined Opportunity’s rover-operating team just before that May 2018 storm.

Dust storms like that one, which snuffed out Opportunity for good, are the most dramatic and least predictable events on the Red Planet (SN: 3/16/19, p. 7). Such storms can make the nail-biting process of landing on Mars even more dangerous and could certainly make life difficult for future human explorers.

Despite almost 50 years of study, scientists are missing some key data that would help explain how dust gets kicked into the air to form planet-wide storms and what keeps it circulating for weeks or months at a time.

“We just do not understand how dust storms form on Mars,” says planetary meteorologist Scott Guzewich of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. History has shown that certain regions and seasons are more prone to dust than others. “Other than that, we’re … blind.”

Mars missions set to launch this summer, from the United States, China and the United Arab Emirates, will help solve that pressing mystery. NASA’s new rover, Perseverance, will carry a suite of weather sensors called MEDA, for Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer. Those sensors will build on decades of Mars exploration and fill in missing puzzle pieces.

“Predicting dust is the ultimate goal” for MEDA, says planetary scientist Germán Martínez of the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston. The data MEDA will collect will be “the most substantial contribution to this topic so far.”

Dust, dust everywhere

Dust is as important to weather on Mars as water is on Earth. With no oceans, scant water vapor and a thin atmosphere, Martian weather can be monotonously calm for about half the Martian year, which lasts close to 687 Earth days. But when the Red Planet’s orbit brings it closer to the sun, dust storm season begins.

In the 10-month dusty season, which corresponds to spring and summer in the southern hemisphere, extra sunlight warms the atmosphere. That warmth generates strong winds as air moves from warm to cool regions. Those winds lift more dust, which absorbs sunlight and warms the atmosphere, generating still stronger winds, which lift even more dust.

There is a season

Mars’ dusty season lasts from the start of southern spring to the end of southern summer (thicker blue line), when the Red Planet orbits closest to the sun. The extra sunlight warms the atmosphere, setting off a feedback loop that can lift dust into the sky and send it circulating around the globe.

Universal Images Group North America LLC/Alamy Stock Photo

Universal Images Group North America LLC/Alamy Stock Photo

The storms come in a range of sizes: Local storms can cover an area about the size of Alaska and last up to three Martian days (each of which lasts about 24.5 hours); global storms can engulf the planet for months. The storm that defeated Opportunity raged from the end of May through late July. Such global storms probably result when several smaller storms merge.

Global dust storms have affected Mars exploration since the arrival of the first long-term robotic visitor in 1971, when NASA’s Mariner 9 orbiter found the planet’s surface entirely obscured. Opportunity and its twin rover, Spirit, both survived a global dust storm in 2007, yet a large regional dust storm ended the Phoenix lander’s mission in 2008.

There has never been a Mars mission that didn’t worry about dust.

A farmer’s almanac

Luckily, Mariner 9 was an orbiter, with no plans to land. It just had to wait for the skies to clear to start snapping pictures of the Martian surface. But the same 1971 storm is probably to blame for vanquishing two Soviet landers that arrived at almost the same time.

Spacecraft that must land to do their work can’t just wait for better timing. Launch windows for missions between Earth and Mars open only every 26 months or so. Engineers who design landing systems need to know what conditions a spacecraft will face when it gets there, says Allen Chen of the Jet Propulsion Lab, who leads the entry, descent and landing for Perseverance.

The most important factor is the density of the atmosphere. Even though Mars’ atmosphere exerts just 1 percent of the pressure of Earth’s on the planet’s surface, both the thin Martian air and the wind blowing through it slow down the spacecraft and affect where it lands, Chen says.

Perseverance will take pictures of the ground while parachuting through the atmosphere and match the images to an onboard map made with images from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Based on those details, an in-flight navigation system will steer the rover to a safe landing spot, helping the rover touch down within an area 25 kilometers wide — the most precise Mars landing ever.

“But that’s dependent on being able to see the ground,” Chen says, without dust obscuring the view.

To land a rover, engineers like Chen rely on forecasts that use the past to tell the future — ​similar to weather forecasts on Earth, but with less data. Atmospheric scientist Bruce Cantor of Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego, a self-described Mars weatherman, put out a Mars weather report every week until September 2019. His forecasts are based on statistics and historical data, mostly taken from orbit. “It’s almost like a farmer’s almanac in my head,” he says.

Cantor’s forecasts for Mars landings since 1999 have been “pretty accurate,” he says, and he boasts that he predicted the storm that ended the Phoenix mission to within three days. More accuracy wouldn’t have saved Phoenix, he says. The lander’s batteries were already low from low winter sunlight levels and the buildup of dust on the solar panels. “It was just a matter of what storm was going to be the mission-ending one,” he says.

He foresees clear skies for Perseverance’s touchdown in February 2021. Based on the season and weather patterns in the past, the probability of a dust storm hitting within 1,000 kilometers of the center of Perseverance’s landing area is less than 2 percent, Cantor and colleagues reported in the journal Icarus in March 2019.

But just in case, Chen’s team trained the navigation system to “deal with it being pretty darn dusty,” Chen says.

A constellation of weather stations

As Mars missions get more complex, and especially as NASA and other groups contemplate sending human explorers, being able to prepare for dust storms takes on extra urgency.

“Someday, somebody is going to go to Mars, and they’re going to want to know when and where storms occur,” Cantor says. “That’s when this stuff becomes really important.”

Cantor would know. Well over a decade ago, while testing a different rover system in Southern California, he jumped into a 2-meter-tall dust devil just to see what it would feel like. “Not one of my smartest moves,” he says. He wasn’t injured, but “it did not feel good. It felt like getting sandblasted.”

Martian astronauts would be protected by more than shorts and a T-shirt, but dust could easily invade human habitats and clog air filters — or damage astronauts’ lungs if they breathe it in. The dust may even carry poisonous and carcinogenic materials that could make astronauts ill over the course of a mission.

Astronauts will need to know when to stay inside. Part of the problem in predicting storms is a sheer lack of data. For Earth’s weather, meteorologists use thousands of ground-based weather stations, plus data from satellites, balloons and airplanes. Mars has only six active satellites, run by NASA and the European and Indian space agencies. And just two sets of weather instruments report from Mars’ surface: one on the Curiosity rover, which has been collecting data since 2012 (SN: 5/2/15, p. 24), and a nearly identical set that arrived with the InSight lander in 2018.

Collecting dust

More than seven Earth years in the Red Planet’s dusty atmosphere has taken its toll on the Curiosity rover, shown in “selfies” the rover took in October 2012 (the 84th Martian day of its mission, left) and in February 2020 (Martian day 2,687, right).

JPL-Caltech/NASA, Malin Space Science Systems

JPL-Caltech/NASA, Malin Space Science Systems

But those two spacecraft are practically neighbors, a big weakness for understanding the whole planet. “It’d be like having one of your weather stations in D.C. and the other in Buffalo,” Guzewich says.

Perseverance will help fill in the gaps. So might China’s first Mars rover, Tianwen-1, set to launch in July with an instrument to measure air temperature, pressure and wind. The Russian and European ExoMars mission, scheduled to launch in 2022, includes a lander called Kazachok equipped with meteorology and dust sensors (SN Online: 3/12/20).

From the air, the UAE’s Emirates Mars Mission, known as Hope, will observe weather, including storms, and how the atmosphere interacts with the ground. Over one Martian year in orbit, Hope will help build a global picture of how the atmosphere changes day to day and between the seasons.

Just having a few more weather stations will be a big boost, says José A. Rodríguez Manfredi of the Center for Astrobiology in Madrid, principal investigator for MEDA, the weather sensors on Perseverance. “We will have a mini network working on Mars in a few years.”

But four or five weather stations on the ground probably won’t be enough. To reliably predict dust storms, what Mars scientists need is a global network collecting data all the time.

To cut down on the cost of such a network, Guzewich suggests figuring out which measurements “would give us the most bang for our buck.” For Earth, NASA and other agencies use a type of study called an Observing System Simulation Experiment to figure out which variables are most important for predicting the weather. Satellites are then designed to focus on those most valuable observations. Such a study has never been done for Mars, but the only obstacle is funding, Guzewich says.

“Mars atmospheric scientists have been clamoring” for such experiments, he says. “We’re not going to reproduce Earth’s observing network before humans go to Mars. It’s not going to happen…. But maybe we could do something that is financially and technologically reasonable that really does make a difference and gets us to the point where we can predict the future a couple days in advance.”

China’s space agency plans to launch its first Mars mission, called Tianwen-1, in July. Its rover (illustrated atop the lander) will measure air temperature, pressure and wind, among other things.Xinhua

Blowing in the wind

Mars forecasts also suffer from a lack of fundamental information, Martínez says. How hard does the wind have to blow to lift the dust? And what does the dust do once it’s airborne?

This is where Perseverance will shine. The rover will make the best direct measurements yet of wind speed and direction on Mars, especially the vertical wind that lifts dust upward.

For a long time, scientists struggled to understand how dust was lifted into the air at all. “It seemed like it couldn’t be possible,” Guzewich says. “The atmosphere is so thin, a single particle of dust or sand is so heavy, it just shouldn’t work.” Observations and experiments over the last 20 years suggest that once sand grains start bouncing along the surface, they can knock into other grains and knock smaller particles upward. But it’s still not possible to tell which of those bouncing grains will lead to a storm — or which of those storms will go global.

Mars climatologists have tried to make detailed wind measurements for decades, Martínez says, but have hit several stretches of bad luck. Only five surface missions — the Viking 1 and 2 landers in 1976, the Pathfinder lander in 1997 and the ongoing Curiosity and InSight missions — have provided useful data on wind speed and direction near the surface. And even those have had mixed results.

NASA’s InSight lander, shown here in a mosaic of selfies the spacecraft took, carries a set of weather sensors called TWINS, or Temperature and Wind for InSight. The lander is one of just two weather stations on the Martian surface. Mars atmospheric scientists say they need more to predict dangerous dust storms.JPL-Caltech/NASA

“Arguably, the best wind record on Mars is still the one from the Vikings, 40 years ago,” Martínez says. Curiosity was supposed to take direct wind measurements in all directions with a pair of electrically heated booms that jutted away from the rover’s neck. “We had great expectations,” Martínez says.

But photos the rover took of itself showed that one boom was damaged as the rover landed, and out of commission. For the first 1,490 Martian days of Curiosity’s mission, the rover could take measurements only when the wind was blowing head on. Then, in October 2016, the second boom broke. In April, researchers suggested a way to hack Curiosity’s temperature sensors to get wind data, but there’s no plan to use that hack at the moment, Guzewich says.

That leaves InSight, but its wind readings are muddled by other parts of the lander getting in the way of airflow. The readings are still useful, but the MEDA team hopes to do better.

Taking lessons from InSight and Curiosity, Perseverance’s MEDA will have more wind sensors that reach farther from the rover’s body. The sensors will be protected by a shield until after the rover has landed safely.

“We are very excited,” Martínez says. “The vertical wind has never been measured before on Mars. We’re going to do that.”

Measuring wind speeds will help scientists determine how hard the wind must blow to kick up dust, the first step in triggering a dust storm.

That figure has personal resonance for Bean, the former Opportunity rover operator. Her first shift was exactly two weeks before the mission-ending global dust storm. She told the rover to use its arm to brush the surface of a rock.

“My coworkers blamed me for starting a whole butterfly effect,” she says. “You brushed the surface,” they joked, “the dust went up, you started the whole dust storm.”

In its end-of-mission report, the Opportunity team admits it will never really know what ended Opportunity’s nearly 15-year run. One possibility is that the dust grew too thick on the solar panels for gentle wind in the calm season to blow the dust off.

One potential fix would be to design future rovers to vibrate their solar panels fast enough to make dust skitter off, Bean says. Once humans are on the planet, they could just clear dust with their arms.

A week or so before Opportunity was officially declared lost, Bean decided to memorialize the rover. “I’d always liked tattoos, but nothing ever spoke to me,” she says. In college, she had studied Mars’ atmospheric opacity — the amount of light that can penetrate an atmosphere’s dust, represented by the Greek letter τ. So Bean got a tattoo on her arm of the last measurement Opportunity sent to Earth: “τ=10.8.” That stands for a night-dark sky in the middle of the day.

.image-mobile { display: none; } @media (max-width: 400px) { .image-mobile { display: block; } .image-desktop { display: none; } } from Tips By Frank https://www.sciencenews.org/article/perseverance-mars-weather-dust-storms

[evasociety-blog]

Mars Insight

INSIGHT MARS binlerce yıldır insanların ilgisini çeken bir gezegen. Mars(Kızıl Gezegen) bizler için neden önemli? Orada yaşayanlar var mı, veya yaşam belirtileri var mı? Mars’ın derinliklerinde neler var? Mars dünya için bir kaynak olabilir mi?... gibi soruları uzatabiliriz. Bilim insanları da bu gibi sorulara cevap bulabilmek için, yıllardır bu gezegen üzerinde; gerek dünyadan gerekse mars yüzeyinden çalışmalar yapıyor. Dünya üzerinden genellikle teleskoplar aracılığıyla çalışmalar yapılırken, mars yüzeyinde araçlarla (Rover veya Lander) çalışmalar yapılıyor. Bildiğimiz üzere mars yüzeyinde mevcut 8 adet araç(pasif olanlar dahil, çünkü bazıları marstaki meşhur kum fırtınaları nedeniyle hasar aldılar ve bilim insanları tarafından uzun uykuya yatırıldılar) var.  Viking 1 lander - 1976  Viking 2 lander - 1976  Mars Pathfinder lander and Sojourner Rover - 1997  Spirit Rover - 2004  Opportunity Rover - 2004  Phoenix Mars Lander - 2008  Mars Science Laboratory (Curiosity) - 2012  InSight lander – 2018 “Insight” aracına bakacak olursak; Tarih 5 Mayıs 2018, Mars “Insight” aracı California eyaletinden başarılı fırlatmanın ardından dünyadan ayrıldı. Ve tamda hesaplandığı gibi 26 Kasım 2018’de görevlerini yerine getirmek üzere Mars yüzeyine iniş yaptı. Dünyadan fırlatıldıktan 6 Ay sonra Marsa ulaşan bu araç nasıl başarılı bir iniş gerçekleştirdi? En zor olanı iniş olduğunu varsayarsak, bu gerçek bir başarıdır. Mars yörüngesine geldi zaman (26 Kasım 2018), mars atmosferine girmeden önce aracımız beraberinde 2 adet uydu getirmişti (Marco-A ve Marco-B) ve bu uyduları mars yörüngesine bırakacaktı. Yani tabir-i caizse bir taşla üç kuş vurulacaktı. Bu ilk kez denenen bir yöntemdi ve başarıyla iki uyduyu yörüngeye sokmayı başardı. Aracımız mars yüzeyine indikten hemen sonra dünyaya ilk fotoğraflarını bu iki uydu aracılığıyla gönderilecekti. İşte o kritik an geliyordu, aracımız iki uyduyu bıraktı ve mars yörüngesine girmişti. Aracımız mars atmosferindeki (yerden 125 km yükseklikteyken) max hıza sahipti (Yaklaşık 5500m/s) ve dolayısıyla fevkalade ısınıyordu. Daha sonra paraşütünü açmak için 12 derecelik bir açıyla ilerlemesi gerekiyordu. Mars yüzeyiyle mesafesi yaklaşık 11.1 km olduğu vakit artık süpersonik paraşütünü açtı ve hızını yaklaşık 385m/s ‘e indirdi. Ve yere yaklaşık 1 km kala paraşütününden de ayrılan aracımız artık kendi yavaşlatıcı motorlarını çalıştırdı. Ve hızını 60m/s ‘e indirmeyi başardı. Ve ardından çok yavaş bir şekilde (2.4m/s) daha önce belirlenen yere başarılı bir şekilde Türkiye saati ile 22.56’da iniş yapıldı. Peki iniş yeri neye göre belirlendi? Bilindiği üzere mars yörüngesinde daha önceleri fırlatılmış olan birçok uydu mevcut. Bunlardan biri olan “Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter” tarafından belirlendi. Bu uydu o kadar gelişmiş ki Mars üzerindeki bir araç büyüklüğünde yükseltileri dahi görebilecek teknolojiye sahip. Yani aracımızın ineceği yer emin ellerdeydi. Örneğin ineceği yer sert olursa (ki istemediğimiz bir yüzey), aracımız beraberinde götürdüğü aletleri yeraltına göndereceği için delmek zor olacaktır. Keza yumuşak bir yüzey olursa(yine çok istemediğimiz bir durum), araç kendi ağırlığı nedeniyle yumuşak yüzeye batabilir. Sonuç olarak uydumuz herşeyi hesaplayıp en uygun yeri seçmiştir(28 yer belirleyip bu seçimi 4’e indirdikten sonra büyük bir krater çevresinde ekvatora yakın bir yer olarak belirlendi). Artık aracımız indiğine göre güneş panellerini açacak ve kendisini şarj edecektir. Ama yanında getirdiği “Sismometreler, Isı ölçüm cihazı ve Rise anteni” inişten yaklaşık bir ay sonra faaliyete geçecektir. Bu aletler çok hassas oldukları için araç kendi kolları sayesinde araçları hassas bir şekilde mars yüzeyine veya mars derinliklerine konumlandıracaktır. Temel olarak mars aracının görevlerine bakacak olursak; (Insight aracından çekilen ilk fotoğraf) (İnişinden birkaç gün sonra çekilen fotoğraf) 3 temel amacı var:  Mars’ın yer kabuğu hareketlerini inceleyecek. (Sismometreler)  Detaylı bir şekilde ısı ve sıcaklık bilgilerini toplayacak.(Isı ölçüm cihazları) (Gerçi yüzeysel olarak -90, +20 derece sıcaklık aralığına sahip olduğunu biliyoruz.)  Kuzey kutbu’ndaki titreşimleri ölçerek kızıl gezegenin çekirdeği hakkında bilgi toplayacak. (Rise anteni) Bu bilgiler sadece mars için değil marsa benzeyen gezegenler için de bilim insanlarına ışık olacak. Üretim kısmına gelecek olursak; Nasa tarafından yürütülen bir proje olmasına karşın farklı ülkelerden özel sektörlerle işbirliği de yapılmıştır. Örneğin “Isı ölçüm cihazları ve sismograflar” Almanya tarafından üretilmiştir. Marco-A ve Marco-B uyduları temel olarak Finlandiya tarafından üretilmiştir, diğer araçlarda da aynı şekilde birçok ülkenin payı var (İngiltere,Polonya,Portekiz,Fransa…). Sonuç olarak başarılı bir iniş yaptı ve yakın bir zamanda bizlere önemli veriler aktaracak. Başarılı işlere imza atması dileğiyle. Ve nice yeni Mars görevleri için (Türkiye dahil) heyecanla bekliyor olacağız. Gelecek Mars Görevleri;  Hope Mars Görevi (Uydu/Mekik) - Temmuz 2020 BAE  Mars 2020 (Rover/Helikopter) - Temmuz 2020 NASA,ABD  ExoMars 2020 (Lander-Rover) - Temmuz 2020 ESA, Avrupa  2020 Çin Mars Görevi (Uydu/Rover) - Temmuz /Ağustos 2020 CNSA, Çin  Mars Terahertz Microsatellite (Uydu/Lander) - Temmuz 2020 NICT, ISSL, Japonya Kaynaklar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_artificial_objects_on_Mars https://www.kozmikanafor.com/marsa-gonderilen-araclarin-evrimi/ https://mars.nasa.gov/insight/spacecraft/instruments/summary/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Artificial_satellites_orbiting_Mars http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2018/mars-insight-landing-preview.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploration_of_Mars LEVENT KILINÇ

[kansascityhappenings]

Mars getting 1st US visitor in years, a 3-legged geologist

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Mars is about to get its first U.S. visitor in years: a three-legged, one-armed geologist to dig deep and listen for quakes.

NASA’s InSight makes its grand entrance through the rose-tinted Martian skies on Monday, after a six-month, 300 million-mile (480 million-kilometer) journey. It will be the first American spacecraft to land since the Curiosity rover in 2012 and the first dedicated to exploring underground.

NASA is going with a tried-and-true method to get this mechanical miner to the surface of the red planet. Engine firings will slow its final descent and the spacecraft will plop down on its rigid legs, mimicking the landings of earlier successful missions.

That’s where old school ends on this $1 billion U.S.-European effort .

Once flight controllers in California determine the coast is clear at the landing site — fairly flat and rock free — InSight’s 6-foot (1.8-meter) arm will remove the two main science experiments from the lander’s deck and place them directly on the Martian surface.

No spacecraft has attempted anything like that before.

The firsts don’t stop there.

One experiment will attempt to penetrate 16 feet (5 meters) into Mars, using a self-hammering nail with heat sensors to gauge the planet’s internal temperature. That would shatter the out-of-this-world depth record of 8 feet (2 ½ meters) drilled by the Apollo moonwalkers nearly a half-century ago for lunar heat measurements.

The astronauts also left behind instruments to measure moonquakes. InSight carries the first seismometers to monitor for marsquakes — if they exist. Yet another experiment will calculate Mars’ wobble, providing clues about the planet’s core.

It won’t be looking for signs of life, past or present. No life detectors are on board.

The spacecraft is like a self-sufficient robot, said lead scientist Bruce Banerdt of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

“It’s got its own brain. It’s got an arm that can manipulate things around. It can listen with its seismometer. It can feel things with the pressure sensors and the temperature sensors. It pulls its own power out of the sun,” he said.

By scoping out the insides of Mars, scientists could learn how our neighbor — and other rocky worlds, including the Earth and moon — formed and transformed over billions of years. Mars is much less geologically active than Earth, and so its interior is closer to being in its original state — a tantalizing time capsule.

InSight stands to “revolutionize the way we think about the inside of the planet,” said NASA’s science mission chief, Thomas Zurbuchen.

But first, the 800-pound (360-kilogram) vehicle needs to get safely to the Martian surface. This time, there won’t be a ball bouncing down with the spacecraft tucked inside, like there were for the Spirit and Opportunity rovers in 2004. And there won’t be a sky crane to lower the lander like there was for the six-wheeled Curiosity during its dramatic “seven minutes of terror.”

“That was crazy,” acknowledged InSight’s project manager, Tom Hoffman. But he noted, “Any time you’re trying to land on Mars, it’s crazy, frankly. I don’t think there’s a sane way to do it.”

No matter how it’s done, getting to Mars and landing there is hard — and unforgiving.

Earth’s success rate at Mars is a mere 40 percent. That includes planetary flybys dating back to the early 1960s, as well as orbiters and landers.

While it’s had its share of flops, the U.S. has by far the best track record. No one else has managed to land and operate a spacecraft on Mars. Two years ago, a European lander came in so fast, its descent system askew, that it carved out a crater on impact.

This time, NASA is borrowing a page from the 1976 twin Vikings and the 2008 Phoenix, which also were stationary and three-legged.

“But you never know what Mars is going to do,” Hoffman said. “Just because we’ve done it before doesn’t mean we’re not nervous and excited about doing it again.”

Wind gusts could send the spacecraft into a dangerous tumble during descent, or the parachute could get tangled. A dust storm like the one that enveloped Mars this past summer could hamper InSight’s ability to generate solar power. A leg could buckle. The arm could jam.

The tensest time for flight controllers in Pasadena, California: the six minutes from the time the spacecraft hits Mars’ atmosphere and touchdown. They’ll have jars of peanuts on hand — a good-luck tradition dating back to 1964’s successful Ranger 7 moon mission.

InSight will enter Mars’ atmosphere at a supersonic 12,300 mph (19,800 kph), relying on its white nylon parachute and a series of engine firings to slow down enough for a soft upright landing on Mars’ Elysium Planitia, a sizable equatorial plain.

Hoffman hopes it’s “like a Walmart parking lot in Kansas.”

The flatter the better so the lander doesn’t tip over, ending the mission, and so the robotic arm can set the science instruments down.

InSight — short for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport — will rest close to the ground, its top deck barely a yard, or meter, above the surface. Once its twin circular solar panels open, the lander will occupy the space of a large car.

If NASA gets lucky, a pair of briefcase-size satellites trailing InSight since their joint May liftoff could provide near-live updates during the lander’s descent. There’s an eight-minute lag in communications between Earth and Mars.

The experimental CubeSats, dubbed WALL-E and EVE from the 2008 animated movie, will zoom past Mars and remain in perpetual orbit around the sun, their technology demonstration complete.

If WALL-E and EVE are mute, landing news will come from NASA orbiters at Mars, just not as quickly.

The first pictures of the landing site should start flowing shortly after touchdown. It will be at least 10 weeks before the science instruments are deployed. Add another several weeks for the heat probe to bury into Mars.

The mission is designed to last one full Martian year, the equivalent of two Earth years.

With landing day so close to Thanksgiving, many of the flight controllers will be eating turkey at their desks on the holiday.

Hoffman expects his team will wait until Monday to give full and proper thanks.

from FOX 4 Kansas City WDAF-TV | News, Weather, Sports https://fox4kc.com/2018/11/20/mars-getting-1st-us-visitor-in-years-a-3-legged-geologist/

from Kansas City Happenings https://kansascityhappenings.wordpress.com/2018/11/20/mars-getting-1st-us-visitor-in-years-a-3-legged-geologist/

[solar-system-en-blog]

Mars

This article is about the planet. For the deity, see Mars (mythology). For other uses, see Mars (disambiguation). Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, after Mercury. Named after the Roman god of war, it is often referred to as the "Red Planet" because the iron oxide prevalent on its surface gives it a reddish appearance. Mars is a terrestrial planet with a thin atmosphere, having surface features reminiscent both of the impact craters of the Moon and the valleys, deserts, and polar ice caps of Earth. The rotational period and seasonal cycles of Mars are likewise similar to those of Earth, as is the tilt that produces the seasons. Mars is the site of Olympus Mons, the largest volcano and second-highest known mountain in the Solar System, and of Valles Marineris, one of the largest canyons in the Solar System. The smooth Borealis basin in the northern hemisphere covers 40% of the planet and may be a giant impact feature. Mars has two moons, Phobos and Deimos, which are small and irregularly shaped. These may be captured asteroids, similar to 5261 Eureka, a Mars trojan. Until the first successful Mars flyby in 1965 by Mariner 4, many speculated about the presence of liquid water on the planet's surface. This was based on observed periodic variations in light and dark patches, particularly in the polar latitudes, which appeared to be seas and continents; long, dark striations were interpreted by some as irrigation channels for liquid water. These straight line features were later explained as optical illusions, though geological evidence gathered by uncrewed missions suggests that Mars once had large-scale water coverage on its surface at an earlier stage of its existence. In 2005, radar data revealed the presence of large quantities of water ice at the poles and at mid-latitudes. The Mars rover Spirit sampled chemical compounds containing water molecules in March 2007. The Phoenix lander directly sampled water ice in shallow Martian soil on July 31, 2008. On September 28, 2015, NASA announced the presence of briny flowing salt water on the Martian surface. Mars is host to seven functioning spacecraft: five in orbit—2001 Mars Odyssey, Mars Express, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, MAVEN and Mars Orbiter Mission—and two on the surface—Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity and the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity. Observations by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter have revealed possible flowing water during the warmest months on Mars. In 2013, NASA's Curiosity rover discovered that Mars's soil contains between 1.5% and 3% water by mass (albeit attached to other compounds and thus not freely accessible). There are ongoing investigations assessing the past habitability potential of Mars, as well as the possibility of extant life. In situ investigations have been performed by the Viking landers, Spirit and Opportunity rovers, Phoenix lander, and Curiosity rover. Future astrobiology missions are planned, including the Mars 2020 and ExoMars rovers. Mars can easily be seen from Earth with the naked eye, as can its reddish coloring. Its apparent magnitude reaches −2.91, which is surpassed only by Jupiter, Venus, the Moon, and the Sun. Optical ground-based telescopes are typically limited to resolving features about 300 kilometers (190 mi) across when Earth and Mars are closest because of Earth's atmosphere. More details Android, Windows