NASA Perseverance Rover: Exploring Mars

mosaix

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The US space agency's Perseverance rover is now just three weeks from arriving at Mars.

The robot's current distance to the Red Planet is still some 4.5 million km (3 million miles), but that gap is closing at a rapid rate. The biggest, most sophisticated vehicle ever sent to land on another planet, the Nasa robot is being targeted at a near-equatorial crater called Jezero.

Touchdown is expected shortly before 2100 GMT on Thursday 18 February.


Another landing using the terrifying 'skycrane'. :eek:
 
I see a promising future in salvaging all these probes one day :)
 
Interesting link to a video simulation of tomorrow's landing.


Also I've seen reference to NASA showing live footage of the landing on their YouTube channel but I can't find any links.
That's just incredible. Thanks Mosaix. It actually deliberately accelerates in order to create the necessary drag/lift ratio before hitting the atmosphere at twelve thousand miles an hour, around seven minutes from touchdown. Astounding engineering! And it can all be lost in a microsecond failure.
 
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That's just incredible. Thanks Mosaix. It actually deliberately accelerates in order to create the necessary drag/lift ratio before hitting the atmosphere at twelve thousand miles an hour, around seven minutes from touchdown. Astounding engineering! And it can all be lost in a microsecond failure.
I believe Apollo 11 entered the Earth's atmosphere at around twice that speed. But then Earth has rather more atmosphere to slow it down!
 
I believe Apollo 11 entered the Earth's atmosphere at around twice that speed. But then Earth has rather more atmosphere to slow it down!
What clever people we are! But so much can go wrong.
Touchdown around 8.30 pm UK time?
 
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I've seen reference to NASA showing live footage of the landing on their YouTube channel but I can't find any links.
NASA website You Tube Perseverance landing live:
 
NASA website You Tube Perseverance landing live:
Thanks @RJM Corbet

About 20 minutes to go!
 
9,000 miles to go. How fast is it going?
Not sure. But they drop ballast a couple of minutes before hitting the atmosphere in order to accelerate up to the correct speed they need to hit fast enough to create enough drag to slow down ... weird ... if they hit too slow, they don't slow down enough, I think?
 
Thanks @RJM Corbet

About 20 minutes to go!
This NASA You Tube feed is rubbish so far, imo? It's kids NASA PR stuff, there's no information coming through about what's happening ...:mad:

Ok, getting better ... no comment about the masks ...
Hang in there ...
 
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