Touchdown! NASA's Mars Perseverance Rover Safely Lands on Red Planet:
First image from surface. (Members of NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover team watch in mission control as the first images arrive moments after the spacecraft successfully touched down on Mars, Thursday, Feb. 18, 2021, at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. (Credits: NASA/Bill Ingalls)
The largest, most advanced rover NASA has sent to another world touched down on Mars Thursday, after a 203-day journey traversing 293 million miles (472 million kilometers). Confirmation of the successful touchdown was announced in mission control at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California at 3:55 p.m. EST (12:55 p.m. PST).
Packed with groundbreaking technology, the Mars 2020 mission launched July 30, 2020, from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The Perseverance rover mission marks an ambitious first step in the effort to collect Mars samples and return them to Earth.
“This landing is one of those pivotal moments for NASA, the United States, and space exploration globally – when we know we are on the cusp of discovery and sharpening our pencils, so to speak, to rewrite the textbooks,” said acting NASA Administrator Steve Jurczyk. “The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission embodies our nation’s spirit of persevering even in the most challenging of situations, inspiring, and advancing science and exploration. The mission itself personifies the human ideal of persevering toward the future and will help us prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet in the 2030s.”
About the size of a car, the 2,263-pound (1,026-kilogram) robotic geologist and astrobiologist will undergo several weeks of testing before it begins its two-year science investigation of Mars’ Jezero Crater. While the rover will investigate the rock and sediment of Jezero’s ancient lakebed and river delta to characterize the region’s geology and past climate, a fundamental part of its mission is astrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life. To that end, the Mars Sample Return campaign, being planned by NASA and ESA (European Space Agency), will allow scientists on Earth to study samples collected by Perseverance to search for definitive signs of past life using instruments too large and complex to send to the Red Planet.
Image Gallery: Perseverance Rover.
(Score: 2) by RedGreen on Thursday February 18 2021, @10:20PM (4 children)
I am finally on Mars or my name is anyways from the details of my boarding pass I got from NASA. I wonder how many billions of years it will be there..
"I modded down, down, down, and the flames went higher." -- Sven Olsen
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Thursday February 18 2021, @11:35PM (2 children)
For you to be on Mars, I'd think the robot would have to be made of duct tape.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Hartree on Friday February 19 2021, @04:11AM
"If the Martians don't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy."
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday February 19 2021, @06:18PM
Duct tape is like the force. It has a light side. It has a dark side. And it binds the universe together.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 19 2021, @01:33AM
You'd do much better to have been in orbit. I don't think you'll last long there with those abrasive sand storms, unless maybe it finds a cave to retire into at the end of mission.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 18 2021, @10:26PM (9 children)
Thanks Joe Biden, yet another achievement for humanity under your skilled leadership!
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 18 2021, @10:50PM (4 children)
Just like the COVID vaccine.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 18 2021, @10:57PM (3 children)
Yes! Now that we have an adult POTUS we actually made headway against this pandemic.
Thanks Joe, you're the best!
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 18 2021, @11:08PM (1 child)
Yes! The WHO says COVID cases are down all around the world! It's like Saint Creepy Joe cured the world of COVIDS! Next, he'll eradicate AIDS and Ebola and Republicanism!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 18 2021, @11:52PM
So say we all!
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 19 2021, @12:19AM
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 18 2021, @10:54PM (3 children)
Flamebait for thanking the President of the United States as the government makes a great achievement under his tenure? He lost, get over it!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 19 2021, @12:43AM (2 children)
We know, he got to be President anyway.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 19 2021, @01:29AM (1 child)
Still hoping for March 4th eh? You Qultists are something else.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 20 2021, @04:58AM
Seriously DeathMonkey, the only person in this world who has any clue what March 4th is - is you and whoever watches whatever fake news you're on about.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 18 2021, @10:45PM
No time to sit on your laurel.
Get off yo ass and get digging.
Git!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 18 2021, @10:48PM
Perseverance took a picture of it's own shadow. Just to the right of Percy's shadow, there's another shadow. It looks to me like the Tardis!
(Score: 2) by Frosty Piss on Thursday February 18 2021, @11:05PM (1 child)
Wonder if it can be hacked to generate bitcoin?
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 19 2021, @01:30AM
Why hack it? It's got that scoopy-thing on it. It can mine the old fashioned way and just dig those coins up.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 19 2021, @12:30AM (2 children)
Before humans go there with their microbes. The cargo goes next Mars-Earth launch window and humans the next window https://www.businessinsider.co.za/elon-musk-spacex-starship-humans-mars-mission-2026-experts-question-2021-2 [businessinsider.co.za]
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday February 19 2021, @12:46AM (1 child)
So humans dump some bags of poop on the cold, perchlorate-ridden surface of Mars. It doesn't matter because the native microbial life forms, if any exist, will be miles beneath the surface in underground lakes. And maybe there will be a few fossils if we're lucky.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by jimtheowl on Friday February 19 2021, @11:36AM
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 19 2021, @01:27AM
https://archive.org/download/TerryADavis_TempleOS_Archive/videos/2017/2017-07-12T04:47:05+00:00%20-%2008JewishPig.MP4 [archive.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 19 2021, @01:38AM
A story so nice, they posted it twice! [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday February 19 2021, @12:28PM (2 children)
My kids tugged me into the family room to watch it together. The first image of the landing site came back but my son was disappointed there was no video of the landing. I explained that to get that they would have had to have another camera sitting on the ground to film it or a chase plane to follow it down; that did not compute (thanks, Hollywood!).
Still, they got that it was on another world and started thinking about how they might walk there some day. The science is exciting, but so is how these missions inspire the young to wonder what else might be possible.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Muad'Dave on Friday February 19 2021, @12:55PM (1 child)
They're hoping to have that video today, at the earliest. They had a ton of cameras on the lander recording as it landed. Watch today's press conference at 1:00pm EST on NASA TV [nasa.gov].
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday February 19 2021, @08:11PM
Thanks for that. I saw your post a few minutes too late. Perhaps they'll have a replay available later today.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by istartedi on Friday February 19 2021, @07:33PM
What if it turns out to be more of a cat planet?
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