Perseverance about to touch down on Mars. The three Sky Crane tethers can be seen and the umbilical providing communications and power to the rover is on the right. NASA/JPL
Well, after 480 million kilometres Perseverance landed on the Red Planet on Thursday at 8.55pm GMT in Jezero Crater, just 2km south east of the delta, and is tilted only 1.2 degrees. It has been an exciting journey with EDL being the usual '7 minutes of terror'. I supplied the peanuts and Lynne the Mars Bar (!) as well as a new Perseverance NASA -T shirt. My name is forever more on Mars.
The Mars helicopter Ingenuity located on the belly of the rover has communicated with Earth via the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and both it and the base station on the rover are operating nominally. Ingenuity is not part of the main mission but a technology demonstration and will remain on the rover for 30 to 60 days. It will attempt the first powered flight on another planet and where the atmospheric volume is less than 1% of Earth's and is composed primarily of carbon dioxide - 96%.
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| Ingenuity - illustration NASA/JPL |
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| One of Perseverance's wheels on the surface to Mars. NASA/JPL |
With 11 million others whose names are on Perseverance, I'm looking forward to my journey in Jezero Crater and hoping for some exciting discoveries.
Exciting times. I am living as bit further back at the moment modelling a 1982 Ford Transit van.
ReplyDeleteSo far the mission appears to have been flawless. My modelling activity has, for various reasons, ground to a halt but it’s good see that yours is progressing at pace. Look forward to seeing the Transit.
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