Watch NASA’s Perseverance Rover Land on Mars!

[DrZoidberg]

I don't think NASA have crashed anything on Mars in 20 years. And this is a second use of the same system - 2 out of 2.
Yes, modern era starts with pathfinder in 97. That's 5 landings and all without failure.

There's been plenty of failed Mars landings. What makes NASA special isn't any unique technology or research that the other countries don't have. It's just a question of them having more money and not cutting corners. The Beagle 2 mission failed because mid project funds were cut, and they had to spend time chasing more money, rather than what they should have been doing, testing more. If funding would have been secured all the time and they had been focused on what they should have been doing, according to plan, it most likely would have succeeded.

Beagle 2 failed for such a bullshit reason. Two of the solarpanels failed to deploy in such a way it blocked the communications antenna, preventing it being fixed from Earth. Easily caught in testing

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Is this a first regular video from Mars ever?
Looks so ordinary, could have been taken on Earth.

I’m sure all the anti-space people out there who have been asking why we don’t have good video from space will now take the tack that it looks too good so obviously filmed here.

I didn't want to be the first poster to bring that up. No doubt we'll be seeing and hearing how the video was faked in the not so distant future. Holy Bigfoot, Batman!

I can't find anyone saying it's a fake but there are fake videos out there already with millions of views.

 

[barbos]

I don't think NASA have crashed anything on Mars in 20 years. And this is a second use of the same system - 2 out of 2.
Yes, modern era starts with pathfinder in 97. That's 5 landings and all without failure.

There's been plenty of failed Mars landings. What makes NASA special isn't any unique technology or research that the other countries don't have. It's just a question of them having more money and not cutting corners. The Beagle 2 mission failed because mid project funds were cut, and they had to spend time chasing more money, rather than what they should have been doing, testing more. If funding would have been secured all the time and they had been focused on what they should have been doing, according to plan, it most likely would have succeeded.

Beagle 2 failed for such a bullshit reason. Two of the solarpanels failed to deploy in such a way it blocked the communications antenna, preventing it being fixed from Earth. Easily caught in testing

Next time NASA sends a robot it shout take a small detour and fix Beagle so it can complete its mission.

 

[barbos]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_missions_to_Mars

Interesting, first successful landing was done by russians, take that , NASA!

 

[Shadowy Man]

Is this a first regular video from Mars ever?
Looks so ordinary, could have been taken on Earth.

I’m sure all the anti-space people out there who have been asking why we don’t have good video from space will now take the tack that it looks too good so obviously filmed here.

Has anyone claimed yet that the whole rover landing was staged?

I had to stop reading the comments on NASA’s Facebook posts a year ago in order to maintain my sanity.

 

[Elixir]

That's 5 landings and all without failure.

If you play russian roulette five times with a six-shooter, you'll survive about 40% of the time.
Five in a row doesn't demonstrate "reliable".

 

[Shadowy Man]

That's 5 landings and all without failure.

If you play russian roulette five times with a six-shooter, you'll survive about 40% of the time.
Five in a row doesn't demonstrate "reliable".

Presumably, unlike NASA missions Russian roulette attempts are random and uncorrelated.

 

[barbos]

That's 5 landings and all without failure.

If you play russian roulette five times with a six-shooter, you'll survive about 40% of the time.
Five in a row doesn't demonstrate "reliable".

5/6 success rate IS definition of "reliable" when it comes to landing on other planets.
And they not only landed but exceeded the mission expectations by a large margin.
And don't forget that NASA had a number of other recent (Pluto, Jupiter, Saturn, Mercury) planetary missions which all (including one with Titan landing) were successful.
Seriously, when was a last failure of any kind? NASA has been a raging success in the last 20 years.
Sorry, Titan landing was ESA, not NASA.

 

[Shadowy Man]

That's 5 landings and all without failure.

If you play russian roulette five times with a six-shooter, you'll survive about 40% of the time.
Five in a row doesn't demonstrate "reliable".

5/6 success rate IS definition of "reliable" when it comes to landing on other planets.
And they not only landed but exceeded the mission expectations by a large margin.
And don't forget that NASA had a number of other recent (Pluto, Jupiter, Saturn, Mercury) planetary missions which all (including one with Titan landing) were successful.
Seriously, when was a last failure of any kind? NASA has been a raging success in the last 20 years.

NASA lost a couple of earth orbiting missions due to a fraudulent aluminum business.

An infrared mission called WIRE burned off all of its cryogen shortly after launch.

There may be others but those are off the top of my head.

 

[barbos]

NASA lost a couple of earth orbiting missions due to a fraudulent aluminum business.

An infrared mission called WIRE burned off all of its cryogen shortly after launch.

There may be others but those are off the top of my head.

That's 1999 launch, more than 20 years ago. And it is 1 out of how many?

 

[Shadowy Man]

That's 5 landings and all without failure.

If you play russian roulette five times with a six-shooter, you'll survive about 40% of the time.
Five in a row doesn't demonstrate "reliable".

5/6 success rate IS definition of "reliable" when it comes to landing on other planets.
And they not only landed but exceeded the mission expectations by a large margin.
And don't forget that NASA had a number of other recent (Pluto, Jupiter, Saturn, Mercury) planetary missions which all (including one with Titan landing) were successful.
Seriously, when was a last failure of any kind? NASA has been a raging success in the last 20 years.
Sorry, Titan landing was ESA, not NASA.

NASA lost a couple of earth orbiting missions due to a fraudulent aluminum business.

An infrared mission called WIRE burned off all of its cryogen shortly after launch.

There may be others but those are off the top of my head.

That's 1999 launch, more than 20 years ago. And it is 1 out of how many?

I’m not saying they aren’t doing a great job. But it’s not like there have been exactly zero failures in twenty years. I guess I’m showing my age of thinking of WIRE as more recent. Sorry on that one.

ETA: the fraudulent aluminum is really not NASA’s fault so I’ll grant you there may be zero or close to zero failures in last 20 years. I’d have to look into it to know for sure.

 

[DrZoidberg]

I don't think NASA have crashed anything on Mars in 20 years. And this is a second use of the same system - 2 out of 2.
Yes, modern era starts with pathfinder in 97. That's 5 landings and all without failure.

There's been plenty of failed Mars landings. What makes NASA special isn't any unique technology or research that the other countries don't have. It's just a question of them having more money and not cutting corners. The Beagle 2 mission failed because mid project funds were cut, and they had to spend time chasing more money, rather than what they should have been doing, testing more. If funding would have been secured all the time and they had been focused on what they should have been doing, according to plan, it most likely would have succeeded.

Beagle 2 failed for such a bullshit reason. Two of the solarpanels failed to deploy in such a way it blocked the communications antenna, preventing it being fixed from Earth. Easily caught in testing

Next time NASA sends a robot it shout take a small detour and fix Beagle so it can complete its mission.

There's a couple of problems with that.

1) Mars continually has dust storms of very fine dust (regolith). A result is that, over time, solar panels get ground down until they are completely opaque. So that'll be the situation now.

2) They don't know what the problem with Beagle 2 is. They know that two solar panels failed to deploy. They don't know why. How are they going to trouble shoot?

3) Perseverance is on the same mission. It makes no sense to help fix Beagle 2 to collect data that Perseverance is better equipped to do.

 

[DrZoidberg]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_missions_to_Mars

Interesting, first successful landing was done by russians, take that , NASA!

The Russians were first with almost everything in space.

 

[lpetrich]

Titled link: Video shows Perseverance rover's dramatic Mars landing - BBC News
Has several camera views:

• From backshell upward: saw parachute deploy
• From rover downward: saw Mars's surface after jettison of heat shield
• From rover upward: saw skycrane separate and later depart
• From skycrane downward: saw rover

A lot of video, yes, and it will be useful as diagnostic information, especially if something goes wrong.

NASA Perseverance Rover Lands Safely On Mars | FULL LANDING SEQUENCE - YouTube
Entry coverage proper starts a little before 1 hour into the video. The landing itself is about 1h 30m in the video. A few minutes later, some pictures arrived, showing the planet's rocky-desert surface.

Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover - NASA Mars

Sounds of Mars - NASA Mars - some sounds captured by microphones aboard the rover, and also simulations of Earth sounds on Mars. High frequencies are expected to be rather muffled in that planet's atmosphere.

Mars Perseverance Rover | NASA

NASA’S Perseverance Rover’s First 360 View of Mars (Official) - YouTube

 

[lpetrich]

NASA’s Mars Helicopter Reports In | NASA

Mission controllers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California have received the first status report from the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter, which landed Feb. 18, 2021, at Jezero Crater attached to the belly of the agency’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover. The downlink, which arrived at 3:30 p.m. PST (6:30 p.m. EST) via a connection through the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, indicates that both the helicopter, which will remain attached to the rover for 30 to 60 days, and its base station (an electrical box on the rover that stores and routes communications between the rotorcraft and Earth) are operating as expected.

...
After Perseverance deploys Ingenuity to the surface, the helicopter will then have a 30-Martian-day (31-Earth-day) experimental flight test window. If Ingenuity survives its first bone-chilling Martian nights – where temperatures dip as low as minus 130 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 90 degrees Celsius) – the team will proceed with the first flight of an aircraft on another world.

If Ingenuity succeeds in taking off and hovering during its first flight, over 90% of the project’s goals will have been achieved. If the rotorcraft lands successfully and remains operable, up to four more flights could be attempted, each one building on the success of the last.

This helicopter is an experiment, but if it works well, we could see similar flying vehicles on Mars and on Titan, Saturn's largest moon.

Being able to fly will mean seeing more terrain, and also acting as a scout for a rover.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The Perseverance Rover weighs 2,260 pounds. 100 times more than the Pathfinder's Sojourner rover.

Earth gets lighter and lighter, while Mars gets heavier and heavier.

Mars is probably losing its atmosphere faster than it is gaining rovers.

Impacts will bring in an awful lot more than our rockets.

And the rovers aren't even the majority of what we sent to Mars--less than 1/3 of the Mars 2020 made it to the surface in one piece. The cruise stage (burned in), heat shield (hard landed), parachute (anchor destroyed by explosives, I would assume the canopy itself is intact) and landing propellant are twice the mass of Perseverance (not counting any fuel still left on the cruise stage.) There's also the skycrane (hard landed) whose mass I'm not as easily finding.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Beagle 2 failed for such a bullshit reason. Two of the solarpanels failed to deploy in such a way it blocked the communications antenna, preventing it being fixed from Earth. Easily caught in testing

You're assuming the failure was present at launch. Things happen in flight. It's purely a matter of luck whether a space probe runs into something or not. Most of the damage will not matter, but there's always a chance it gets something important.

 

[skepticalbip]

Beagle 2 failed for such a bullshit reason. Two of the solarpanels failed to deploy in such a way it blocked the communications antenna, preventing it being fixed from Earth. Easily caught in testing

You're assuming the failure was present at launch. Things happen in flight. It's purely a matter of luck whether a space probe runs into something or not. Most of the damage will not matter, but there's always a chance it gets something important.

True, from the videos I've seen just lift-off from Earth would put the payload through a lot of stress... sorta like putting an instrument on the end of a stick and shaking it back and forth as hard as you can.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Beagle 2 failed for such a bullshit reason. Two of the solarpanels failed to deploy in such a way it blocked the communications antenna, preventing it being fixed from Earth. Easily caught in testing

You're assuming the failure was present at launch. Things happen in flight. It's purely a matter of luck whether a space probe runs into something or not. Most of the damage will not matter, but there's always a chance it gets something important.

Sure. But testing is about minimizing risks and unforseen events. Colin Pillinger has said in interviews that the team had to spend months chasing money. Time that they in planning was were supposed to be spending testing. Hinting at that being the real reason. The testing phase got compressed due to time restraints. And since it's two years between launch windows the choice was made to launch instead of postponing for the necessary tests.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Beagle 2 failed for such a bullshit reason. Two of the solarpanels failed to deploy in such a way it blocked the communications antenna, preventing it being fixed from Earth. Easily caught in testing

You're assuming the failure was present at launch. Things happen in flight. It's purely a matter of luck whether a space probe runs into something or not. Most of the damage will not matter, but there's always a chance it gets something important.

True, from the videos I've seen just lift-off from Earth would put the payload through a lot of stress... sorta like putting an instrument on the end of a stick and shaking it back and forth as hard as you can.

Yeah. Spaceflight is about building a brick shithouse a kid can pick up and carry.