New Mars Forums

SpaceNut

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Re: New 2020 Mars Rover based on MSL

oh no... NASA rushing to complete Mars launch before planet moves out of range. Mission to include first-ever helicopter exploration.

Its going to need to go fast to make it up and then put on the breaks hard once near mars....

Dubbed “Perseverance,” the SUV-sized rover would embark on a $2.7 billion exploration mission to search for ancient signs of life on Mars, and begin the first leg of an attempt to bring samples from the Red Planet back to Earth.

ouch that's a very expensive rover mission....

SpaceNut

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Re: New 2020 Mars Rover based on MSL

Closing in on the launch day  https://www.foxnews.com/science/nasas-n … r-covid-19

https://www.digitaltrends.com/news/nasa … re-launch/

With such an important timescale to keep to, NASA has to allow for the possibility that there could be poor weather on the launch day requiring a short delay. So the window for the launch this summer runs from July 20 to August 11, allowing some flexibility for last-minute issues. The rover will be launched atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, along with the first-ever helicopter to be flown on another planet, named Ingenuity.

SpaceNut

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Re: New 2020 Mars Rover based on MSL

The Perseverance rover is launching with 43 sample tubes. Five of the tubes will be blanks — they will not be filled with Martian samples — to help scientists analyzing the specimens sort out what molecules came from Mars, and what originated on Earth.

SpaceNut

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Re: New 2020 Mars Rover based on MSL

NASA reveals what the Mars Helicopter is really going to do

SpaceNut

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Re: New 2020 Mars Rover based on MSL

How to watch the Mars launch
What: NASA launches Mars Perseverance rover
Date: Thursday, July 30, 2020
Time: 7:50 a.m. EDT
Location: Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida

SpaceNut

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Re: New 2020 Mars Rover based on MSL

SpaceNut

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Re: New 2020 Mars Rover based on MSL

Mars missions complete first course corrections on journey to Red Planet

SpaceNut

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Re: New 2020 Mars Rover based on MSL

Perseverance rover bringing 3D-printed metal parts to Mars

Of the 11 printed parts going to Mars, five are in Perseverance's PIXL instrument.

Video NASA's Perseverance Rover Bringing 3D-Printed Metal Parts to Mars
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Perseverance's six other 3D-printed parts can be found in an instrument called the Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment, or MOXIE. This device will test technology that, in the future, could produce industrial quantities of oxygen to create rocket propellant on Mars, helping astronauts launch back to Earth.

To create oxygen, MOXIE heats Martian air up to nearly 1,500 degrees Fahrenheit (800 degrees Celsius). Within the device are six heat exchangers - palm-size nickel-alloy plates that protect key parts of the instrument from the effects of high temperatures.

https://www.nasa.gov/topics/technology/ … index.html

SpaceNut

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Re: New 2020 Mars Rover based on MSL

Sunrise as seen by Curiosity

Counting down as Nasa Rover has less than 100 Days until reaching the Red Planet on Feb. 18, 2021; in Jezero Crater, just north of the planet's equator.
With that landing Mars Is Getting a New Robotic Meteorologist

NASA's Perseverance Mars rover has two wind sensors just below its mast, or "head." They're part of MEDA, (Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer) a weather science package that will provide vital data on the Martian surface, especially dust in the atmosphere.

Models of the temperature at Perseverance's landing site range from an average of minus 126 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 88 degrees Celsius) at night to about minus 9 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 23 degrees Celsius) in the afternoon.

MEDA and its predecessors is that it will also measure the amount, shape, and size of dust particles in the Martian atmosphere. Dust is a big consideration for any surface mission on Mars.

MEDA's data will help another instrument on Perseverance: the Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (MOXIE). MOXIE will demonstrate a technology that future explorers might use to produce oxygen that can be used for rocket propellant and for breathing. For devices like MOXIE to succeed, mission planners will need more information on what they're up against. "Are they getting a clean atmosphere?" said de la Torre Juarez. "Are they getting a dusty atmosphere? Is this dust going to end up essentially filling up the air filters or not? They may identify times of the day when it is better to run MOXIE, versus times when it is better not to run it."

To take its measurements, MEDA will wake itself up each hour, day and night, whether Perseverance is roving or napping. That will create a nearly constant stream of information to help fill the gaps in our knowledge about the Martian atmosphere.

https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/spacecra … ents/meda/

All of this is to pave the way Preparing for a human mission to Mars
https://dx.doi.org/10.1089/ast.2020.2373

Tmcom

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Re: New 2020 Mars Rover based on MSL

Yes, interesting read, 100 days and 4 billion, but the usual.

They did that with the 1 billion 1970's probes, and could have easily botched the oven tests, (dropped the dirt before adding moisture and heating up).

They willl never bring back samples from Mars as independant researchers may get a hold of some, and find it has organics or microbes in them, as Viking showed in its first two oven tests.

They spend more and more with fancier tools, but it all boils down to the same thing, a smokescreen of low pixel Mast Cam images, intentionally avioding anything that should be inspected up close, and intentionally repeating images from earlier Sols, (l have noticed that at times) to hide the current rovers treck over some water or overcast skys.

And we get NASA officials saying how exited they are, l will be exited when they tell us what is really there.

/:

Last edited by Tmcom (2020-11-16 08:16:09)

SpaceNut

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Re: New 2020 Mars Rover based on MSL

https://photographylife.com/landscapes/ … hotography
is the colored little dots in the sun facing image

https://physics.stackexchange.com/quest … ng-the-sun

SpaceNut

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Re: New 2020 Mars Rover based on MSL

https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020

The home page shows several stages to the rover landing

https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/files/me … on_3_1.mp4

https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/files/me … tion_1.mp4

90 days to mars touchdown

SpaceNut

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Re: New 2020 Mars Rover based on MSL

All eyes will be soon on the Perseverance rovers landing..for FEB 18, 2021 now under 70 days .. https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/

SpaceNut

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Re: New 2020 Mars Rover based on MSL

This post is from a lack of information coming from the insight lander as to why its data is not being received....

https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/spacecra … nications/

Antennas on rover deck:
Ultra-High Frequency Antenna
X-band High-Gain Antenna
X-band Low-Gain Antenna

Mars 2020 uses its ultra-high frequency (UHF) antenna (about 400 megahertz) to communicate with Earth through NASA's orbiters around Mars. Because the rover and orbiter antennas are within close range of each other, they act a little like walky-talkies compared to the long-range telecommunications with Earth provided by the low-gain and high-gain antennas.
It generally takes about 5 to 20 minutes for a radio signal to travel the distance between Mars and Earth, depending on planet positions. Using orbiters to relay messages is beneficial because they are much closer to Perseverance than the Deep Space Network (DSN) antennas on Earth. The mass- and power-constrained rover can achieve high data rates of up to 2 megabits per second on the relatively short-distance relay link to the orbiters overhead. The orbiters then use their much larger antennas and transmitters to relay that data on the long-distance link back to Earth.

The high-gain antenna X band (7 to 8 gigahertz)is steerable so it can point its radio beam in a specific direction. The benefit of having a steerable antenna is that the entire rover doesn't need to change position to talk to Earth, which is always moving in the Martian sky. Deep Space Network's 230-foot-diameter (70 meter-diameter)
Provided by    Spain

low-gain antenna primarily for receiving signals. This antenna can send and receive information in every direction; that is, it is "omni-directional." The antenna transmits at low data rate to the Deep Space Network antennas on Earth.

Seems these are the same systems for communications for this rover as for the others, so I am wonder if its resetting or out of funds to continue the satellites in orbit or something else?

SpaceNut

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Re: New 2020 Mars Rover based on MSL

The search for life continues NASA's Perseverance rover will look for biosignatures on Mars and its landing site looks remarkably similar to Earth-based sites that contain ancient fossilized cells.

On 18 February, the Mars2020 mission will touch down in a small crater called Jezero near the Martian equator. The mission includes a rover called Perseverance that will explore the area, analyze rocks and gather samples to be returned to Earth by a later mission due to fly in 2026. The mission also includes a helicopter drone called Ingenuity that will scout ahead, looking for intriguing targets to study.

Jezero is interesting because it was once filled with liquid water and so should contain significant evidence of its effects. Even more tantalizing is the possibility that the crater once hosted life. Indeed, part of the Mars2020 mission is to search for signs of life and any biosignatures preserved in the rock.

Planetary geologists have long studied Jezero, marking it as a potential landing site for Mars missions. But the decision to send a rover there has made it the target of much more study.

The crater is about 50 kilometers in diameter and well-studied using the cameras aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The images at various frequencies of visible and infrared light reveal the composition of the rock and also its grain size, which reveals how it has weathered over time.

Brown says this shows the crater was originally formed in rock consisting of olivine, a mineral containing iron, magnesium and silicates, as well as well carbonates.

Brown says NASA and the European Space Agency have agreed to work on the sample return mission together. “The nominal launch date is planned for 2026, with a nominal return of samples by 2031,” he says.