Missions to Mars

[Stan]

Wooo! 

Aside from all the insane football chat, this is a refreshing distraction... 

 

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[CaaC (John)+]

Mars Helicopter First Flight

Edited April 19, 2021 by CaaC (John)

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Hi-res video! 

 

 

[CaaC (John)+]

Edit: Sorry @Stan, I didn't realize you had posted this earlier, my apologies  

Edited April 22, 2021 by CaaC (John)

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This is an important breakthrough, and potentially a game changer. Great to see the technology works. 

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[CaaC (John)+]

On 22/04/2021 at 01:05, nudge said:

 

 

They are taking one step at a time which is understandable but brilliant watching it fly, it's like sitting here in the lounge and a wee midgie flys past you, try and swat it and the air from your hands pushes it away. 

[CaaC (John)+]

MARS HELICOPTER 3rd FLIGHT

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A very special message from Mars! 

 

 

[CaaC (John)+]

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Ingenuity: mission extended

So successful is the tiny Mars helicopter Ingenuity that NASA’s decided to extend its mission.

 

NASA’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter worked so well on its initial test flights that NASA has decided to extend its mission another 30 sols (Mars days).

But instead of simply testing the helicopter, says Lori Glaze, director of NASA’s Planetary Science Division, it will be seeing how it can be used to help explore the Martian landscape in tandem with the Perseverance rover.

“It’s going to transition from a technology demonstration to an operations demonstration,” she says.

“It’s a new phase,” says the helicopter’s project manager, MiMi Aung of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in California.

Initially, Aung says, the goal was simply to demonstrate that it was possible to fly on Mars and then to investigate how flying Ingenuity on Mars differed from flying it in the lab – important information for the development of the next generation of Mars helicopters. In the process, she expected that the helicopter would be pushed close enough to its limits that its last flight of the month was likely to be a crash.

But it turned out that there were precious few differences between flying on Mars and the engineers’ expectations.

In its first three flights, the helicopter demonstrated that it could rise, hover, fly, track its elevation to within a centimetre, and land safely at precisely the designated position. “All in all, it’s really a great-performing vehicle,” says Bob Balaram, the helicopter’s chief engineer.

What that means is that the Perseverance rover team is suddenly gifted with a functional helicopter that might actually be able to carry out aerial reconnaissance.

To test that, the helicopter’s fourth flight last Saturday (AEDT) saw it airborne for 117 seconds, flying 133 metres out and back, and taking about 60 black-and-white and 5 colour images along the way.

These, Aung says, will be used to make 3D maps of the surrounding terrain—maps that can be used to find another safe landing zone for the fifth flight.

“All in all, it’s really a great-performing vehicle,” says Bob Balaram, the helicopter’s chief engineer.

That flight will be a one-way trip to the new “airfield,” demonstrating that the helicopter can scout out its own landing zone on one flight, then go to it on the next, leaping across the Martian surface, rather than staying at a single base.

Meanwhile, says Jenifer Trosper, the rover’s deputy project manager, the Perseverance rover itself will go back to its main mission, to study Jezero Crater and collect samples for eventual return to Earth.

Previously, she says, scientists had thought that this was the point where Ingenuity would have to be abandoned, even if it hadn’t crashed.

That’s because the helicopter can only fly for 2 minutes per outing, before it has to land, lest its motor overheats, says Balaram. And because it’s solar-powered, it has to recharge its batteries. It wasn’t expected to take long for the rover to outdistance it and lose contact.

But, says Trosper, it turns out that the rover won’t be driving very far in the next few weeks.

“We thought we would be driving away from the region we landed,” she says, “but the sample team is interested in getting the [first] samples from this region.”

That area, says Ken Farley, a project scientist at California Institute of Technology (Caltech), is a narrow strip about 1.6km long that appears to contain ancient mudstones.

These are formed from what was once silt at the bottom of the lake that once filled the crater, coming from a time when the lake would have been particularly habitable. They are also the type of sediment that is most likely to preserve signatures of ancient life, he says. “[So] we are planning to explore this area looking for interesting rocks.”

Will Ingenuity be able to help find the best sample sites? Time will tell.

Meanwhile, Farley says, “We appreciate the [helicopter’s] scouting ability and the ability to fly to territory the rover could not traverse. This is useful for future missions that could combine a rover with a helicopter.”

With flight number four logged, however, the helicopter team will have to slow down the pace of its operations.

For the past month, the rover’s main job has been to babysit the helicopter, taking pictures of it as it flies, and limiting its own activities to minimize the risk of electrical interference with the helicopter’s signals.

Now, the helicopter takes a backseat, and will only fly when it doesn’t distract from the rover’s main mission.

“We will fly every few weeks instead of every few sols,” Trosper says.

After 30 sols, the new phase of the helicopter’s mission will be re-evaluated, and possibly extended again.

“Right now it’s healthy,” Balaram says. “But it wasn’t designed for a long mission and its components haven’t been tested for how many cold Martian nights they can tolerate before something snaps.” But he says, “there are no consumables on this helicopter. The only consumable is our landing gear, which is good for up to 100 landings”.

All told, Glaze says, this is a “see how it goes” phase of the mission. “There is the potential to go beyond [30 days] but we’ll have to assess after 30 days.”

Not to mention that there is still the risk of a crash. “We are transferring to airfields that are not well characterised,” Aung says, “so there is a higher possibility of errant landings.”

https://cosmosmagazine.com/space/exploration/ingenuity-mission-extended/

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[CaaC (John)+]

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There may still be active volcanoes on Mars

Volcanic activity on the Red Planet may produce conditions capable of supporting microbial life, study finds.

Volcanoes on Mars could’ve erupted as recently as 50,000 years ago, a study carried out using data from satellites orbiting the planet by researchers at the University of Arizona has found.

Previous studies have suggested that most of the volcanic activity on the Red Planet occurred between 3 and 4 billion years ago, with some outlying eruptions continuing in isolated locations until about 3 million years ago.

“This may be the youngest volcanic deposit yet documented on Mars,” said lead study author Dr David Horvath, who did the research as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Arizona and is now a research scientist at the Planetary Science Institute. “If we were to compress Mars’ geologic history into a single day, this would have occurred in the very last second.”

The volcanic deposit was found in Elysium Planitia, a smooth, flat plain located just north of the equator. The eruption produced an 11km-wide, smooth, dark deposit surrounding a 32km-long volcanic fissure, and could’ve spewed ash and rock up to 10km into the Martian atmosphere.

The composition and distribution of the material deposited match what would be expected for a pyroclastic eruption – an explosive eruption of magma driven by expanding gasses similar to what happens when you open a bottle of sparkling wine.

Some hallmarks of the volcanic deposit also raise the possibility of conditions capable of supporting microbial life existing below the surface of Mars.

“The interaction of ascending magma and the icy substrate of this region could have provided favourable conditions for microbial life fairly recently and raises the possibility of extant life in this region,” Horvath said.

The site of eruption is around 1,600km from NASA’s InSight lander, which has been studying seismic activity on Mars since 2018.

Read more about Mars:

• Why it’s critical the first crew on Mars contains a woman, according to former astronaut Dr Kathy Sullivan
• Mars Ingenuity Helicopter: Why drones are the future of space exploration
• 11 history-making Mars Perseverance rover moments, captured on camera

Further study is required to determine the exact nature of the eruption, but two Marsquakes, the Martian equivalent of earthquakes, were found to originate around the Cerberus Fossae system of fissures found within the Elysium Planitia region. Recent work has suggested the fissures could be the resulting movement of magma deep underground.

“The young age of this deposit absolutely raises the possibility that there could still be volcanic activity on Mars, and it is intriguing that recent Marsquakes detected by the InSight mission are sourced from the Cerberus Fossae,” Horvath said.

The eruption may also have been due to a build-up of gases already present in the magma, or could have happened when the magma came into contact with permafrost, the researchers say.

It is also possible that the eruption was triggered by the asteroid impact that formed the nearby Zunil crater at about the same time, they add.

The volcanic deposit, along with ongoing seismic rumbling in the planet’s interior detected by InSight, and possible evidence for releases of methane into the atmosphere detected by NASA’s MAVEN orbiter, suggest that Mars is far from a cold, inactive world.

“This may be the most recent volcanic eruption on Mars, but I think we can rest assured that it won’t be the last,” said study co-author Dr Jeff Andrews-Hanna, an associate professor at the University of Arizona. “All these data seem to be telling the same story, Mars isn’t dead.”

https://www.sciencefocus.com/news/there-may-still-be-active-volcanoes-on-mars/

 

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Fingers crossed! 

 

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Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be much official coverage from China... 

According to numerous radio astronomers though, the landing tonight is very likely as judging from the loss of signal, it appears the spacecraft is preparing for the first landing maneuver. 

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Should be about 4-5 hours away from landing now...

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Should be entering the Martian atmosphere now  hopefully more  details from the official sources in the next hour... 

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The landing was successful! 

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[CaaC (John)+]

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China lands its Zhurong rover on Mars

VIDEO

China has successfully landed a spacecraft on Mars, state media announced early on Saturday.

The six-wheeled Zhurong robot was targeting Utopia Planitia, a vast terrain in the planet's northern hemisphere.

The vehicle used a combination of a protective capsule, a parachute and a rocket platform to make the descent.

The successful touchdown is a remarkable achievement, given the difficult nature of the task.

Only the Americans have really mastered landing on Mars until now. With this landing, China becomes the second country to put a rover on Mars.

Chinese President Xi Jinping congratulated the team's "outstanding achievement" in a special message.

"You were brave enough for the challenge, pursued excellence and placed our country in the advanced ranks of planetary exploration," he said.

FULL REPORT

 

Edited May 15, 2021 by CaaC (John)

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According to an interview with Wu Yanhua, CNSA's number 2 in charge, the rover will descend from the platform on the 22nd, and will then take the first "selfie" with the lander on the 27th.

 

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First pics from Zhurong! 

 

 

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Zhurong has descended onto the surface! 

 

 

 

[Stan]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-57233756

100 days since Nasa's Perseverance landed on Mars!