Perseverance Landing at Jezero Crater

[Palanan]

For anyone interested in the Perseverance landing attempt on Mars today, NASA will be streaming coverage on their public channel.


Apart from hoping it all works, I'm especially interested in the drone helicopter, although it looks like that won't be flying until early May.

[Genth]

Congrats Perseverance! Landed safe and sound!

[Democratus]

Always growing our robot invasion of the Red Planet!

[asda fasda]

Now Just waiting for helikopter to be deployed, that Will be something

[DavidSh]

Now Just waiting for helikopter to be deployed, that Will be something

If I understood the press conference, that could be be a week or so. They will want to spend some time driving the rover first.

[Palanan]

The Ingenuity helicopter won't be flying for at least another month, since it needs to be (carefully) released and unpacked from the rover, and then they have a whole series of tests to run through before attempting the first flight.

I mentioned early May in the first post, which was their best estimate just prior to landing. They may move up the schedule a little, but it's likely to be a month at least.

[DavidSh]

Yes, apparently I did misunderstand. The "week or so" is until the rover starts driving. A more recent press conference estimated 60 days until first flight for the helicopter.

[Tarmor]

Thanks for this thread guys... I hadn't realised that this was happening!
I spent maybe two very enjoyable hours yesterday evening reading and watching stuff on Perseverance and the landing. I'm also really looking forward to those helicopter tests.

[Palanan]

Landing video is up, which is one of the coolest things I've watched in a long time:

https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/n...ng-first-audio

[DavidSh]

Now they have reported driving their first few meters (on Sol 14, two weeks after landing), and everything seems to work.

[Palanan]

For anyone who missed it, here's a very recent episode of NOVA giving an overview of the engineering and design work for Perseverance, along with a glimpse at a possible Mars Sample Return mission architecture.

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/video/...-life-on-mars/

[Ravens_cry]

I like to think of it like it Persi as leaving presents for future explorers, the solar system's longest distance Easter egg hunt.
The video the rover took using the skycrane was just spectacular. The closest I will come to knowing what its like to land on Mars.
And there is something absolutely haunting about listening to the audio, the sounds of the rover and the thin Martian wind murmuring. I hope the send even more.

[DavidSh]

It's now looking like the first Ingenuity flight will be in April. The landing site (Octavia E. Butler landing) turned out to be a pretty good location for a test flight.

...And now, they are very slowly and carefully unfolding and lowering the helicopter to the ground, in a multi-day process. You can follow along at https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/multimedia/raw-images/

By April 4, the helicopter has been deployed, and the rover has driven away from it.