NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover

[Beati Dogu]

It’s off to scout locations to drop off the helicopter, which is attached to its underside.

[Beati Dogu]

My dad had a MG Montego as a company car for a while. It was quite quick as I recall. I can still remember the number plate for some reason.

Meanwhile on Mars, the Perseverance rover is about to drop its protective belly pan, exposing the sampling equipment. As the bishop said to the actress.

https://twitter.com/nasapersevere/status/137041912...

[Beati Dogu]

It protected the sensitive sampling equipment & helicopter from the landing rockets blast. I'm sure Elon will be along in a few years to tidy up.

[Beati Dogu]

NASA has revealed that the Mars helicopter is carrying a little piece of fabric taken from the Wright Brothers' aircraft on it.

So the first flight from the surface of Mars will have something from the first powered flight on Earth.

No pressure then.

It's not the first time they've done something like this; Neil Armstrong carried a couple of pieces with him to the Moon on Apollo 11. Fellow astronaut (and native of Ohio) John Glenn also carried a piece with him on his Space Shuttle trip in 1998.

[Beati Dogu]

Robot selfie on Mars:



Johnny 5 is alive.

[Beati Dogu]

Numerous fragments! (hopefully not the helicopter)

hidetheelephants said:

Do they have means of cleaning the lenses? I'm imagining a spindly arm holding a lense cloth but probably not!

No, but that mast is about 2 meters up in the air, so dust isn't a bad problem apparently. The little Martian wind storms actually help to avoid the build up of dust. Also, when the rover is sleeping, the masthead faces downward (awwww).

They also turn the mast to point away from anything that could cause dust to be kicked up (like drilling).

The cameras located further down, like the WATSON camera on the arm, have dust covers on them and they're only moved away when the camera is in use. That's proven to work well on other rovers.

[Beati Dogu]

Arnie has some advice for NASA:

https://twitter.com/schwarzenegger/status/13838768...

[Beati Dogu]

The surface gravity on Titan is about 1/7th that of Earth, compared to the Moon's 1/6th of Earth.

Titan is about 1.8 times as dense as the Moon and also larger, but the surface is also further from its center than the Moon's.

Stood on the surface of each & you'd be about 520 miles further from the center of Titan, than from the center of Moon.

As I understand it, it's the distance from the center (its radius) as well as its mass that determine surface gravity.


See Newton's law of universal gravitation:

F = GMm/r^2

F = force
G = gravitational constant
M = mass of object 1 (Titan or the Moon for example)
m = mass of object 2 (You, or the object on the surface)
r = distance between centers of the masses (the distance between the center of Titan / Moon and the surface)

[Beati Dogu]

It’s even smaller than I thought.

[Beati Dogu]

Third choppa flight completed OK.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNx9hcrUpww

5 meters up and 50 meters off to the site and back.

[Beati Dogu]

The Perseverance rover captured by da choppa as it zoomed past on its 3rd flight.




https://spaceflightnow.com/2021/04/25/nasas-ingenu...

[Beati Dogu]

I believe it is. Won't be the last either I expect.

[Beati Dogu]

You just know that’s going to happen one day too.

Sorry sir, you’ll get it back in the next transfer window… in 2 years.

[Beati Dogu]

The Sun got in way for a couple of weeks in October 2021 - this happens every 2 Earth years apparently.

Perseverance was put on autopilot and collected wind and weather data for the duration.

[Beati Dogu]

I saw something a while back about some pebbles jamming up the works of the drill bit carousel.

They drove the rover up a nearby incline to angle it over, ran the drill bit to vibrate things a little and let gravity do the work.

[Beati Dogu]

Yes, it's used to scout out areas for the rover to take a look at.