New Mars Forums

===
Today on Mars: 0038/19/01 Sunday Days of the week OFFSET 0 with Earth.  (count from Mars to Earth )
Sol 502 Business Month 19 First month of Quarter 4 of Year 38
Today on Earth: 2026/04/12 Sunday Earth Date) One day note: First day of Month 19: Start of Quarter 4
====*====*====

To see how this calendar works, we show the standard 28 day month at the bottom of this daily report.
There are 20 months of 28 Sols and 4 months of 27 Sols at the end of the four six-month quarters.
New Years Eve is extended to align the Business Calendar for Mars with the Astronomical calendar.
Business and Astronomical both start at zero (to the nanosecond) on New Year's Day.
This calendar has been in operation for two full Mars years (36 and 37). We are in Year 38

This calendar is NOT the Darian Calendar!

Per http://www-mars.lmd.jussieu.fr/mars/tim … _time.html also see: in-the-sky.org for opposition/perigee/aphelion

Martian Year: 38  Martian Astronomical Interval in 12 interval format: 9 <<== The Astronomical interval
Check Longitude: the interval will increment when longitude reaches 270 degrees

===
Solar Longitude: 261.5 Sol Number: 502  Change in degrees is +.6 Julian date is: J0038502
Solar Longitude: 260.9 Sol Number: 501  Change in degrees is +.6 Julian date is: J0038501
Solar Longitude: 260.3 Sol Number: 500  Change in degrees is +.7 Julian date is: J0038500
#>

Note that Solar Longitude measurement varies as a function of location in orbit.  Ls 0 is the moment when the Sun appears to transit from one hemisphere to the other.  Update from Mars.NASA.gov (The Sun crosses the equator of Mars (Vernal Equinox)). The transition itself is a function of the tilt of an object with respect to the Solar plane. Per squarewidget.com, Hipparchus created the celestial coordinate system we use today.

Note#2: https://theskylive.com/mars-tracker  This web site shows the astronomical position of Mars as seen from Earth
Todo: At next Aphelion/Perihelion record the Mars date as J00##### (and set Search term)
Perihelion occurred in 2026 at Ls 251 on Sol 486 - Earth Date 2026/03/27 Next: (estimated) 2028/05/15
Perihelion occurred in 2024 at Ls 251 on Sol 485 - Earth Date 2024/05/08 Next: (estimated) 2026/03/06 (actual) 2026/03/26
Perihelion occurred in 2022 at Ls 251 on Sol 485 - Earth Date 2022/06/21 Next: (actual) 2024/05/08
Aphelion Earth Dates: Next: 2027/03/04 Earlier: 2025/04/16, 2023/05/30, 2021/07/12, 2019/08/25, 2017/10/07, 2015/11/20
Aphelion occurred at--- Ls 071 on Sol 152. 
Aphelion occurred near Ls 070 on Sol 153 (per http://www.planetary.org)

Note#3: The computations below are dependent upon both the computations provided by the reference web site and by accuracy of recording of the time of observations.  The calculations use tenths of hours.  The Sun Distance needs to be captured at the moment the time increments to a given tenth.

Note on data below: The figure quoted after distance is a rate of progress along the orbital path [exact meaning to be determined]
Minus prefix means Mars is approaching the Sun.  Plus prefix means Mars is moving away from the Sun.
The figure computed to the right of "Difference" is the rate of change of the distance to Sun. Increasing to Aphelion/Decreasing to Perihelion.

Aphelion of Mars is due March 04, 2027 Sol 151-152 Note velocity of Mars was 22.0 km/s nearing Aphelion (21.97 km/s)
Perhelion of Mars is due May, 2028 Sol 251 Note velocity of Mars was 26.5 km/s nearing Perhelion 2026/03/26

===
Distance: Mars >> Sun per theskylive.com:   206,952,486 km [26.5 km/s] Difference is +35053 <= +1498 km/hour at 12.0 on 04/12 (time 12:00) (24.0 hours)
Distance: Mars >> Sun per theskylive.com:   206,916,533 km [26.5 km/s] Difference is +33853 <= +1411 km/hour at 12.0 on 04/11 (time 12:00) (24.0 hours)
Distance: Mars >> Sun per theskylive.com:   206,882,680 km [26.5 km/s] Difference is +31629 <= +1318 km/hour at 12.0 on 04/10 (time 12:00) (24.0 hours)
==*==*==*

Observation: The sky view is ** filled ** with objects and some have been recorded and given identification by humans or their robot assistants
And! ** All ** the location assignments are from the perspective of Earth.  The entire catalog needs to be adjusted when inter-stellar travel begins
The work that lies ahead for the astronomical community is daunting - there is work ahead for centuries
2022/01/19 - All current (existing) stellar catalogs are computed with reference to the Earth.  Another civilization would use it's planet as reference.
Perhaps a Milky Way frame of reference will become necessary at some point. The Earth is as good a Zero point as any, for humans.

=== Mars is in Regular movement as seen from Earth.
Next ahead:    Mars is approaching 5 hours ahead of Psyche RA 00h 07m 39.6s Mars 00h 08m 22.1s
Mars is 4.5 hours ahead of Psyche RA 00h 06m 29.0s Psyche RA 00h 04m 26.0s
====*====*===

Zoom Out Capability As a general observation ... I've become increasingly interested in knowing what the larger view of the sky might be like.
The site: theskylive.com does a terrific job of matching the view from Earth towards Mars, against a background of actual astronomical plates.
I wish there were a way (or rather, I wish I ** knew ** about a way that may exist) to enlarge the view until the entire galaxy is in view (Zoom out)
Update 2022/12/08 TheSkyLive.com provides a large view of selected objects: Select [Major Bodies] Then select [Information] in the body of interest
Update 2022/12/08 Scroll down to (body) Position and Finder Charts. Field of view is 50x30 degrees.

Light travel in one second is (about) 300,000 kilometers. The distance covered in one minute is about 18,000,000 kilometers. Estimated light times:
1:18,2:36,3:54,4:72,5:90,6:108,7:126,8:144,9:162,10:180,11:198,12:216,13:234,14:252,15:270,16:288,17:306,18:324, 19:342,20:360,21:378,22:396

Light travel time today is between 18 and 19 minutes. Communications delay would be 36+ minutes round trip.

=== Time estimate will change below 324
Earth Distance in km: 2026/04/12 340,601,762 (decreasing)
Earth Distance in km: 2026/04/11 340,843,409 (decreasing)
Earth Distance in km: 2026/04/10 341,084,204 (decreasing)
<<#

Maximum Earth-Mars distance is estimated to be 401 million kilometers (both at apogee and opposite vs Sun) Minimum is about 56 million kilometers
Mars and Earth were in Opposition (Earth center)  in December of 2022.  The date coincided with a (very rare) occultation of Mars by the Moon.
Mars and Earth were in Conjunction (Sun center) in November of 2023.
Mars and Earth appear to have been as close as they will get in Year 36. 81,454,323 kilometers on J0036644 Time: 4.53 minutes - 9 minutes round trip

In his online interview with Dr. Zubrin at the 2020 Mars Conference, Elon Musk reminded the audience that communications with Mars will necessarily include an intermediary station to handle traffic when the Sun is between Mars and Earth.  Communications delays in that circumstance will increase due to the extra distance to be covered.  Mr. Musk indicated he expects such communication will be handled by laser.  Location would be optimum at poles of solar plane.

This web site offers an online model of the solar system: www.solarsystemscope.com  It requires Chrome 57, Firefox 52 or Safari 10.1. Viewed 2022/10/13: Opposition will occur some time in December of 2022.  Per earthsky.org, the date is December 8, 2022.

This web site offers an online orrery view of the Solar System: https://www.theplanetstoday.com/

===
Sol 502 is in Month 19 of a Proposed 24 month calendar. See Post 19 of Holidays topic for a summary.
Month  19 extends from Sol 502 through 529. <<== There are 28 days in Month 19. See post 82 of Holidays topic for current details.
Direct path to source: http://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php … 57#p154257
Sol 502 is Sunday in the Proposed Business calendar for Mars.   Sol 486 was a Skip Day on Mars. Next is near 523 of Year 38
##

The Next New Year's on Mars will occur when Solar Longitude reaches 360 degrees. Year 38 started November 12, 2024 on Earth
Per www.planetary.org Year 36 started 2021/02/07 on Earth. Mars Year 37 began 2022/12/27 on Earth.

Days of the Week Alignment:
Days of the week fall behind Earth due to the longer Sol, but they also change when Friday is omitted at the end of a Quarter
337 Earth days were observed to elapse in the 2020 weekday cycle. There were 7 week day transitions and 2 Quarter ends.
The next cycle began on the first Sol of the period of coincidence. The  alignment of weekdays interval is in the range: (310 - 337)
To find the first day of a period of coincidence: Set up: SearchTerm(colon) and (colon)Alignment and J0036* or J0037*
The most recent End-Of-Quarter change occurred: … The search specified above gave 11 pages of results.

For current weather on Mars see:

   ***https://mars.nasa.gov/insight/weather/***
   ***Insight's weather info has been suspended and now is directing to msl*** <<-- Insight's mission is over (2022)

https://mars.nasa.gov/msl/weather/

Per SpaceNut: Here is another web page by NASA containing the latest news releases

https://mars.nasa.gov/news/?page=0&per_ … ope=Latest

All forum members are invited to post significant events for this day.
Events of interest will be ON Mars, or relate to Mars. Examples are launches, landings, discoveries

Standard Month in Mars Business Calendar Copyright ® 2023 NewMars.com Mars Society
Su    Mo    Tu    We    Th    Fr    Sa
1        2      3      4      5      6      7
8        9    10     11    12    13    14
15    16    17     18    19    20    21
22    23    24     25    26    27    28

Recruiting text may be found at the bottom of this post:  http://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php … 57#p154257
Copyright the Mars Society All Rights Reserved

Month 19 of 24: <<== First month of Quarter 4

For Void!

Thanks for introducing the radio frequency cutting technology as a possibility for use on the Moon.

https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.ph … 42#p238742

It is possible the folks at Quaise haven't thought of that.

They might be willing to reply to an email inquiry if you were to reach out to them.

They may have a contact form on their web site.

I'll bet a question about the Moon does not come into their offices every day.

It seems to my your idea of "carving" with this tool has a lot of potential.

Perhaps experiments along these lines have already occurred?

(th)

For Calliban re secure email service...

During the recent outage, Admins reached out to you to let you know we were continuing to meet at the "Lifeboat" site (new-mars.org/phpBB3/)

However, it turned out our contact email is not in your "approved" list, so your secure email provider courteously informed us we would not be permitted to send email to you.  However, interestingly, they ** did ** respond to our inquiry with a personal, very courteous, business-like explanation. What it boils down to is that we are in need of you adding us to your approved contact list.

We would like you to add newmarsmember{at}gmail.com to your approved list, and then notify us via Housekeeping that your account is ready for a test.

We will then send you a test message.

We would like to have everyone up to date within some reasonable period of time.

(th)

For Mars_B4_Moon ...

Our recent outage revealed that some of our members could not be contacted.

The email address we have on file may no longer be working, or ..

The email address we use (newmarsmember) may be blocked by a spam filter, or ...

The email address may be working but the member no longer looks at it.

We even had a case of a member using a secure email service, but we were not included in the approved list.

For this reason, as members return, we are inviting everyone to make sure the email address is working.

I will launch a test email in a moment. Please let us know if the email arrives by posting a note in Housekeeping.

***
Thanks for the many updates you provided today!  Your updates about Chinese progress in humanoid robotics was particularly interesting to me.  I've asked both ChatGPT and Gemini about how they might become integrated into humanoid robot systems, and both expressed the view that teleoperation would be the most likely model for the near term. Both expressed interest in having the peripheral device combination of audio, visual, tactile and perhaps other sensory data, along with the prospect of mobility and the ability to manipulate objects.  Neither thought the brain capacity that can be built into the humanoid robot form factor would support their capabilities for years  to come.

I will be watching to see if you find updates along these lines. 

PS ... I found a topic that is about the Blue Origin launched probes to Mars, if you would be willing to provide updates there.

I'm not sure were a topic might be about media, but if one exists it might fit in the Culture category.

This brings up a point ... after the recent outage (and actually during the outage where a few members met in the "Lifeboat"), Admins are pondering the structure of the forum.  It was designed in 2001 and a ** lot ** has happened since then.  We've (carefully) added one or two categories.

The Housekeeping topic is available if you or any other member has suggestions for any changes that might be considered.

(th)

This topic has been quiet since 2015 ....  The book and the movie have come and gone...

There may be some commentary that could be added to this topic.

This topic is NOT about movies or books ** other ** than "The Martian"

(th)

This topic is about a high altitude balloon ride for paying customers on Earth.

This topic is NOT about a balloon on Neptune or anywhere else than Earth.

It is time for an update on the high altitude balloon ride concept.

SpaceNut, if you have time, please investigate to see what happened to that idea.

(th)

Place holder for today's Calendar update for 2026/04/12:

[51.4792N, 0.0000E] 04/12/2026, 13:00:00 Europe/London
Object: Mars   [open sky map]
RA 00h 09m 15.3s Dec -00° 04' 56.8" Appar J2000
Mag: 1.25 (Estimated: JPL)  Const: Pisces
Sun Dist: 206,952,486 km [26.5 km/s]
Earth Dist: 340,601,762 km [53.6 km/s]

Martian Year:   
38
Martian Astronomical Month:   
9
Solar longitude Ls:   
261.5
Sol number:   
502

Current ID:730

Total number of registered users: 19,630
Total number of topics: 9,001
Total number of posts: 234,415
Newest registered user: Scarecrow2025
Registered users online: 2
Guests online: 64
Online: Mars_B4_Moon, tahanson43206

This post is offered as a reminder that we have a topic for heat shields.

Heat shields are back in the news because Artemis II returned safely from the Moon using a heat shield that was NOT manufactured to the specifications of the Apollo heat shields.

As of April 11, 2026, news of how the heat shield performed is not yet made public.

There is potential for a company to specialize in Apollo style heat shields for the expected deep space traffic of future decades.

GW Johnson has described a way to make Apollo style heat shields without using individual squirt guns to fill thousands of hexagonal cells.

There should be enough return-from-deep-space business to support at least one company and perhaps more than one.

Of course, using the atmosphere to reduce velocity is NOT a good idea, if the destination planet is Earth, because of the clutter in LEO.

GW Johnson has described a system of Space Tugs that can match orbit with arriving vessels and put them in a LEO orbit with a bit of maneuvering. 

(th)

For GW Johnson ....

During Apollo, we went by "John F. Kennedy" time.

There were NO vehicles of ANY kind when he set the goal.

Administrator Isaacman may be trying to set a goal for the contractors to meet.

I noticed during the recovery operations, when US Navy personnel were milling around and not doing anything useful, the folks in Mission Control announced that the contract called for the astronauts to be recovered and aboard ship within two hours of landing.  Magically, the pace picked up shortly thereafter.

I don't think the target for Artemis III is a "projection".

I think it is an expectation.

We have two competitors and I expect them both to meet the deadline.

(th)

For GW Johnson!

Thanks for pointing out the discrepancy!

When this topic was created, Artemis I was the subject and it was an unmanned expedition.

The change to "Flight Coverage" happened without paying attention to the higher level!.

Fortunately, we can fix this!

I'll rename the topic and create a new one for the manned flights.

This topic is closed except for such updates as members may contribute about Artemis I.

(th)

What a great speaker!

Hopefully the video of today's meeting will become available online.

Mr. Zavala served in the Air Force for 23+ years and retired as Lieutenant Colonel.  He then became a part of the select group of CAPCOM personnel who support the ISS and all manned missions.

The warmup speaker is another of the Science Fair prize winners from the recent Houston Science Fair.

His presentation was on a hybrid rocket he built and tested.  He combined images of the device, with abundant documentation, including CFD images showing what he was expecting, and then a film showing exactly the same behavior.

Impressive!

(th)

For GW Johnson re #63!

Thank you for your observation about the Sikorsky heavy lift helicopters.  There are 41 of these operating around the world, and all are expensive to rent.  According to Google, a rental of a million USD is typical.  These machines are (apparently) used for logging and fire fighting, but ** also ** for lifting heavy HVAC equipment to the top of tall buildings.

Since the US Navy already ** had ** a helicopter carrier, it was a logical choice for this operation.

Here is a Google snapshot about the USS John P. Murtha:

Here is a bit more information about the Murtha, which is one of a class of ships:

Per Google:

(th)