Mars
Perseverance and Ingenuity ready to explore Mars
Preparations have continued to go smoothly for next month’s targeted launch of NASA’s Mars 2020 mission to the Red Planet. The mission includes a car-sized rover as well as the first helicopter to ever be sent to another planet. The rover’s primary mission is to search for signs of ancient microbial life, as well as …
NASA’s Mars 2020 Mission Crossword
NASA is upping its game with the next mission to the Red Planet. The Mars 2020 mission will include a car-size rover based largely on the design of the Curiosity rover. Also attaching a ride to Mars with the new rover is a small helicopter that will test powered flight on another world for the …
Finalists selected for naming NASA’s next Mars rover
After conducting a nationwide contest where kindergarten through 12th grade students across the United States submitted essays to “Name the Rover,” NASA has selected nine candidate names as finalists to come up with a fitting name for NASA’s Mars 2020 rover. The nine candidate names were selected from more than 28,000 essays submitted since the …
NASA’s Martian helicopter enters final test phase for 2020 rover
Going where no helicopter has gone before, humanity’s maiden Martian chopper has entered its final testing phase with the goal of proving the rather difficult feat that a heavier-than-air vehicle can fly in the Red Planet’s extremely thin atmosphere. If all goes well, the Martian helicopter will be mated to the belly of NASA’s 2020 …
Opportunity completes record-setting 15 year mission on Mars
The longest surviving robot ever to explore the surface of Mars – the Opportunity Mars Exploration Rover – was declared dead by NASA officials on February 13, 2019, after conducting a record-setting 15 year mission on the Red Planet, when she failed to respond to a final set of “phone home” commands sent last night …
ITS: SpaceX’s bold vision for crewed exploration of the solar system
It has long been known that SpaceX’s long term goal is the colonization of Mars. Everyone from the engineers to their CEO, Elon Musk, dreams of a world away from home. In September of 2016, we got a glimpse of how SpaceX is going to get there. At last, the long rumored Interplanetary Transport System …
Helo, Mars!
Objective Apply trigonometric ratios to the NASA Mars Helicopter Scout so that flight data such as climb angle and average speed can be calculated given initial flight parameters. Vocabulary • Slope: The angle the rille wall makes to the horizontal. • Above Ground Level (AGL): The altitude as measured from the local area. • Altitude: …
Why did Schiaparelli crash during landing?
Contact with the ExoMars Schiaparelli lander was lost during its attempt to make it to the surface last October. It was later discovered that the lander had crashed into the surface of the Red Planet. A large volume of data recovered from the Mars lander shows that the atmospheric entry and associated braking occurred exactly …
Skimming an alien atmosphere
After the smooth arrival of ESA’s latest Mars orbiter, mission controllers are now preparing it for the ultimate challenge: dipping into the Red Planet’s atmosphere to reach its final orbit. The ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter is on a multiyear mission to understand the tiny amounts of methane and other gases in Mars’ atmosphere that could …
Record number of missions at the Red Planet
So, the ‘Great Galactic Ghoul’ strikes again? This tongue-in-cheek entity is invoked by NASA scientists and engineers when missions experience difficulties, especially at Mars. After a seven month journey for ESA’s first ExoMars mission, contact with its Schiaparelli Lander was lost just before its scheduled touch-down on 19th October last year, although its Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) successfully entered into orbit around the Red Planet and is functioning well. However, rather than the work of a cosmic ‘gremlin’, the …