Mars 2020, Perseverance rover and the Ingenuity helicopter drone, NASA, USA

**Airicist** · 6th July 2021, 00:55

Ingenuity Helicopter completed 9th flight on Mars for 625 meters distance

Jul 5, 2021

On July 5, 2021 NASA’s Ingenuity Helicopter made 625 meters 9th flight on Mars and Perseverance Rover transmitted latest images from Ingenuity’s onboard camera. Ingenuity traveled ~2,041 ft (625 meters), fly time was ~167 seconds and took color images of the trip from onboard 13-MP camera. Speed was ~5 m/s. Mars Drone has received 2nd software update on Red PlanetNow Ingenuity ready to go ahead Perseverance Rover and send images of those areas where rovers is driving. Now Ingenuity and Perseverance work together to explore Mars for water presence in the past.

**Airicist** · 22nd July 2021, 12:12

Perseverance’s first sample location

Jul 22, 2021

NASA’s Perseverance rover is getting ready to collect its first sample of rock from an area of the Jezero Crater informally called the “Cratered Floor Fractured Rough.” Jennifer Trosper (Perseverance project manager, JPL) explains what the team and the rover have achieved so far. The stones that appear light-colored and flat in this image are informally referred to as the “paver rocks” and will be the first type from which Perseverance will collect a sample for planned return to Earth by subsequent missions.

**Airicist** · 24th August 2021, 22:55

NASA’s Curiosity Mars Rover finds a changing landscape

Aug 17, 2021

NASA’s Curiosity rover explores Mount Sharp, a 5-mile-tall (8-kilometer-tall) mountain within the basin of Gale Crater on Mars.

**Airicist** · 8th September 2021, 09:10

Perseverance’s first sample of Mars

Sep 5, 2021

NASA’s Perseverance rover successfully drilled and collected its first sample of Mars, from a rock nicknamed “Rochette”, on 1 September 2021. Perseverance will now seal the tube no. 266 and store the sample. The first sample attempt failed on 6 August 2021 because, according to NASA, the rock was “too crumbly”. Perseverance is exploring an area of the Jezero Crater informally called the “Cratered Floor Fractured Rough.”

**Airicist** · 21st September 2021, 23:11

RI Seminar: Andrew E. Johnson : The Search for Ancient Life on Mars Began with a Safe Landing

Sep 11, 2021

Abstract: Prior mars rover missions have all landed in flat and smooth regions, but for the Mars 2020 mission, which is seeking signs of ancient life, this was no longer acceptable. To maximize the variety of rock samples that will eventually be returned to earth for analysis, the Perseverance rover needed to land in a geologically diverse region with exposed layers. Terrain relief that is ideal for the science obviously poses significant risks for landing, so a new landing capability called Terrain Relative Navigation (TRN) was added to the mission. TRN takes images of the ground during parachute descent and matches them to a map of the landing area made from orbital imagery. These matches provide a position fix, like GPS, that tells the lander where it is relative to a map of known landing hazards. Given its position relative to the hazards the spacecraft can identify a safe and reachable landing site to target during the final rocket powered phase of landing. This talk will describe the scientific goals of the mission, the Terrain Relative Navigation system design and the successful results from landing on February 18th, 2021.

BioSketch: Dr. Andrew E. Johnson is a Principal Robotics Systems Engineer in the Guidance and Control Section of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Since joining JPL in 1997, he has been developing technologies and flight systems for autonomous navigation and mapping during descent to planets moons, comets and asteroids. For the Mars Exploration Rovers, he was lead developer for the Descent Image Motion Estimation System, and on Mars 2020 he led the development of the Lander Vision System that provided surface relative position estimates for Terrain Relative Navigation. He was also the manager of the Mars 2020 Guidance Navigation and Control subsystem which included cruise, EDL and surface mission functions. Andrew received undergraduate degrees in Mathematics and Engineering Physics from the University of Kansas and a Ph.D in Robotics from Carnegie Mellon University.

**Airicist** · 9th October 2021, 11:39

Article "A NASA spacecraft orbiting Mars snapped a photo of the Perseverance rover in the crater below"

by Lily Katzman
October 7, 2021

**Airicist** · 17th October 2021, 11:50

Mars Sample Return conceptual animation

Oct 12, 2021

Collecting samples from Mars and bringing them back to Earth will be a historic undertaking that started with the launch of NASA’s Perseverance rover on July 30, 2020. Perseverance collected its first rock core samples in September 2021. The rover will leave them on Mars for a future mission to retrieve and return to Earth. NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) are solidifying concepts for this proposed Mars Sample Return campaign. The current concept includes a lander, a fetch rover, an ascent vehicle to launch the sample container to Martian orbit, and a retrieval spacecraft with a payload for capturing and containing the samples and then sending them back to Earth to land in an unpopulated area.

jpl.nasa.gov/missions/mars-sample-return-msr

**Airicist** · 26th October 2021, 08:42

NASA's Perseverance Rover captures the sounds of Mars

Oct 18, 2021

NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover carries two microphones which are directly recording sounds on the Red Planet, including the Ingenuity helicopter and the rover itself at work. For the very first time, these audio recordings offer a new way to experience the planet.

Earth and Mars have different atmospheres, which affects the way sound is heard. Justin Maki, a scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Nina Lanza, a scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory, explain some of the notable audio recorded on Mars in this video.

**Airicist2** · 10th January 2022, 15:44

NASA's Perseverance Mars Rover milestones - 2021 Year in review

Dec 28, 2021

What has NASA's Perseverance rover accomplished since landing on the surface of Mars in February 2021? Surface Operations Mission Manager Jessica Samuels reflects on a year filled with groundbreaking discoveries at Jezero Crater and counts up the rover's achievements:

● More than 1.8 miles (2.9 kilometers) driven
● A new record for the longest drive in a Martian day
● Six samples and counting of Martian rock and atmosphere that could eventually be brought to Earth for further study
● More than 50 gigabytes of science data
● More than 100,000 images returned, including two "selfies"
● 18 flights by NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter, which hitched a ride and coordinates flights with the Perseverance rover

Samuels also explains the next phase of Perseverance’s mission: to explore the delta that formed in Jezero Crater billions of years ago from sediment that an ancient river carried into the lake that once existed in the crater.

A key objective for Perseverance's mission on Mars is astrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life. The rover is characterizing the planet's geology and past climate and paving the way for human exploration of the Red Planet. Perseverance is the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith (broken rock and dust).