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NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover landing will be must-see TV

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An illustration of Perseverance during its descent to the Martian surface.


NASA

NASA is just weeks away from landing a shiny new robot on the surface of Mars, and for the first time, we’ll be able to see and hear what it’s like to touch down on another world.

Perseverance is due to land in Jezero Crater on Feb. 18, becoming the first artificial object to land on the surface since the Mars Insight lander in 2018 and the first rover since Curiosity touched down in 2012.

But the new rover on the block is carrying more audio-visual gear than its predecessors to capture portions of the pivotal entry, descent and landing, or EDL, phase of the mission. A camera mounted on the back shell of the spacecraft is pointed up and will be able to catch a view of the parachutes that will deploy during descent to slow Perseverance as it comes in for its landing. Beneath this is a downward-pointing camera on the descent stage, which further slows and orients the rover for landing. 

Finally, the rover itself is equipped with cameras and a microphone. Altogether, this suite of tech should provide us with the most detailed images and audio of a landing on Mars yet.

“We’re going to be able to watch ourselves land for the first time on another planet,” Lori Glaze, who heads the Planetary Science Division of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, told reporters during a briefing Wednesday.

Perseverance carries its own audio-visual rigging.


NASA

The entire EDL phase will last only about seven minutes, but EDL lead Allen Chen calls it “the most critical and most dangerous part of the mission.”

Perseverance will hit the Martian atmosphere traveling at almost 12,000 miles per hour  (19,312 kilometers per hour), streaking across the sky as it begins to slow down. A 70-foot (21 meters) diameter parachute will deploy to slow it further. Afterward, its heat shield is released and radar is activated to help it determine its own location. 

At an altitude of about one mile (1.5 kilometers), the descent module fires its engines and a new terrain relative navigation system, or TRN, kicks in to identify a safe landing spot. TRN is basically a sort of computer vision that allows the spacecraft to look at the terrain below and match it up with maps in its database.


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This is how NASA’s Perseverance rover will get Mars rocks…



2:06

The system slows down to a literal crawl, and then it’s time for “sky crane,” the same sort of hovering landing system the Curiosity rover used, which will allow Perseverance to basically lower itself softly to the surface.

This whole process will be fully automated without any input from mission control because of the delay in sending radio signals back and forth from Mars to the Earth.

Perseverance carries a number of science instruments to help look for signs of ancient life on our neighboring world, to collect samples that will be returned to Earth and to test some technologies for future Mars missions.

Also, it has a tiny helicopter.

Robots have spent years rolling around Mars, which is pretty cool, but for the first time NASA will use a small helicopter, dubbed Ingenuity, to try flying around the planet.


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How NASA’s Mars helicopter could change the future of…



5:20

But before Ingenuity can fly, Perseverance has to nail its landing first. While its cameras and microphones will capture much of this whole process, there won’t be a live feed like we’ve become accustomed to from the International Space Station or most launches from Earth. That’s because the data relay Perseverance will be using during EDL is slower than even old dial-up connections.

However, after landing it will be able to use the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to send images back to Earth. Chen estimates that we’ll be able to see at least some low-res images of the environment around Perseverance on the surface shortly after landing. We may have to wait a few days for more imagery and audio that paint the full picture of the landing process.

We will, however, have live feeds from mission control, which provided some of the more iconic images from the Curiosity landing. (Mohawk guy, anyone?) Of course, COVID-19 protocols will be in effect at mission control, but it’s unlikely that even the pandemic will dampen the celebration of a successful landing.

“I don’t think that Covid is going to be able to stop us from jumping up and down and fist bumping,” said Deputy Project Manager Matt Wallace. “You’re going to see a lot of happy people no matter what, once we get this thing on the surface safely.”

Follow CNET’s 2021 Space Calendar to stay up to date with all the latest space news this year. You can even add it to your own Google Calendar. 

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Science

NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover landing will be must-see TV

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An illustration of Perseverance during its descent to the Martian surface.


NASA

NASA is just weeks away from landing a shiny new robot on the surface of Mars, and for the first time, we’ll be able to see and hear what it’s like to touch down on another world.

Perseverance is due to land in Jezero Crater on Feb. 18, the first artificial object to land on the surface since the Mars Insight lander in 2018 and the first rover since Curiosity touched down in 2012.

But the new rover on the block is carrying more audio-visual gear than its predecessors to capture portions of the pivotal entry, descent and landing, or EDL, phase of the mission. A camera mounted on the back shell of the spacecraft is pointed up and will be able to catch a view of the parachutes that will deploy during descent to slow Perseverance as it comes in for its landing. Beneath this is a downward-pointing camera on the descent stage, which further slows and orients the rover for landing. 

Finally, the rover itself is equipped with cameras and a microphone. Altogether, this suite of tech should provide us with the most detailed images and audio of a landing on Mars yet.

“We’re going to be able to watch ourselves land for the first time on another planet,” Lori Glaze, who heads the Planetary Science Division of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, told reporters during a briefing Wednesday.

Perseverance carries its own audio-visual rigging.


NASA

The entire EDL phase will last only about seven minutes, but EDL lead Allen Chen calls it “the most critical and most dangerous part of the mission.”

Perseverance will hit the Martian atmosphere traveling at almost 12,000 miles per hour  (19,312 kilometers per hour), streaking across the sky as it begins to slow down. A 70-foot (21 meters) diameter parachute will deploy to slow it further. Afterward, its heat shield is released and radar is activated to help it determine its own location. 

At an altitude of about one mile (1.5 kilometers), the descent module fires its engines and a new terrain relative navigation system, or TRN, kicks in to identify a safe landing spot. TRN is basically a sort of computer vision that allows the spacecraft to look at the terrain below and match it up with maps in its database.


Now playing:
Watch this:

This is how NASA’s Perseverance rover will get Mars rocks…



2:06

The system slows down to a literal crawl, and then it’s time for “sky crane,” the same sort of hovering landing system the Curiosity rover used, which will allow Perseverance to basically lower itself softly to the surface.

This whole process will be fully automated without any input from mission control because of the delay in sending radio signals back and forth from Mars to the Earth.

Perseverance carries a number of science instruments to help look for signs of ancient life on our neighboring world, to collect samples that will be returned to Earth and to test some technologies for future Mars missions.

Also, it has a tiny helicopter.

Robots have spent years rolling around Mars, which is pretty cool, but for the first time NASA will use a small helicopter, dubbed Ingenuity, to try flying around the planet.


Now playing:
Watch this:

How NASA’s Mars helicopter could change the future of…



5:20

But before Ingenuity can fly, Perseverance has to nail its landing first. While its cameras and microphones will capture much of this whole process, there won’t be a live feed like we’ve become accustomed to from the International Space Station or most launches from Earth. That’s because the data relay Perseverance will be using during EDL is slower than even old dial-up connections.

However, after landing it will be able to use the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to send images back to Earth. Chen estimates that we’ll be able to see at least some low-res images of the environment around Perseverance on the surface shortly after landing. We may have to wait a few days for more imagery and audio that paint the full picture of the landing process.

We will, however, have live feeds from mission control, which provided some of the more iconic images from the Curiosity landing. (Mohawk guy, anyone?) Of course, COVID-19 protocols will be in effect at mission control, but it’s unlikely that even the pandemic will dampen the celebration of a successful landing.

“I don’t think that Covid is going to be able to stop us from jumping up and down and fist bumping,” said Deputy Project Manager Matt Wallace. “You’re going to see a lot of happy people no matter what, once we get this thing on the surface safely.”

Follow CNET’s 2021 Space Calendar to stay up to date with all the latest space news this year. You can even add it to your own Google Calendar. 

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Science

“Against All Odds” –NASA’s Planet-Hunting Tess Discovers a Unique Star System with Six ‘Suns’ (Weekend Feature)

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“The system exists against the odds,” said Brian Powell, a data scientist at NASA’s High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center about the source of starlight that was mysteriously brightening and dimming some 1,900 light-years away. The source, named TIC 168789840, is a system of three pairs of binary stars: three different stellar couplets revolving around three different centers of mass, but with the trio remaining gravitationally bound to one another and circling the galactic center as a single star system.

“Just the fact that it exists blows my mind,” said first author, Powell. “I’d love to just be in a spaceship, park next to this thing and see it in person.”

Eclipses in the Lightcurves

The breadth of observation of TESS, encompasses nearly the entire sky, allowing for the identification of many candidate multiple star systems through the analysis of eclipses in the lightcurves. A collaboration between the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and the MIT Kavli Institute, in conjunction with expert visual surveyors, has found well over 100 triple and quadruple star system candidates.

Most Systems are Quadruples

The large majority of the TESS discovered candidate triple and quadruple star systems are quadruples, followed by triples since it began searching the galaxy for exoplanets in 2018. But the source of starlight that was mysteriously brightening and dimming some 1,900 light-years away,” reports Robin George Andrews for the New York Times, “may top all those discoveries for its science fiction-like grandeur.”

“Though quadruple systems are much more rare than triple systems,” reports NASA, “the large outer orbit of the third star in a hierarchical triple, necessary for stability, substantially reduces the probability that the eclipse or occultation of the third star will be visually noticed in a TESS lightcurve. Beyond quadruple stars, the probability of systems with more stars being identified via photometry alone is remote, as the formation of sextuple systems is likely quite rare. This low probability is compounded by the requirement that each binary must be oriented in such a manner that they are all eclipsing.”

A Unique System

Although several of other six-star systems have been discovered, reports Andrews about NASA’s TESS discovery, this is the first in which the stars within each of those three pairings pass in front of and behind each other, eclipsing the other member of its stellar ballet, at least from the TESS space telescope’s view.

 

 

“These are the types of signals that algorithms really struggle with,” said lead author Veselin Kostov, a NASA Postdoctoral Fellow at Goddard Space Flight Center working. “The human eye is extremely good at finding patterns in data, especially non-periodic patterns like those we see in transits from these systems.”

Although exoplanets within the star system have yet to be confirmed, only one of the pairs could have any planets. Two of the system’s binaries orbit extremely close to one another, forming their own quadruple subsystem. Any planets there would likely be ejected or engulfed by one of the four stars. The third binary is farther out, orbiting the other two once every 2,000 years or so, making it a possible exoplanetary haven.

Its Origin a Mystery

“The origin of this whirling six-star system will remain a puzzle until we find others like it,” concludes Andrews. “Just the fact that it exists blows my mind,” said first author, Powell. “I’d love to just be in a spaceship, park next to this thing and see it in person.”

In 2019, TESS discovered its TOI 1338 its first circumbinary planet, a world orbiting two stars, 1,300 light-years away in the constellation Pictor. The two stars orbit each other every 15 days. One is about 10% more massive than our Sun, while the other is cooler, dimmer and only one-third the Sun’s mass. TOI 1338 b, the only known planet in the system. It’s around 6.9 times larger than Earth, or between the sizes of Neptune and Saturn. The planet orbits in almost exactly the same plane as the stars, so it experiences regular stellar eclipses.

The Daily Galaxy, Jake Burba, via Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA Arxiv.org PDF, and New York Times Science

Image Credit: NASA/MIT/TESS shows the spacecraft’s 13-sector mosaic of the southern sky, recorded over the course of a year. One object shown in the mosaic is a long, bright edge of our Milky Way galaxy.

 



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Science

NASA’s Deep Space Network Welcomes a New Dish to the Family

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“After the lengthy process of commissioning, the DSN’s most capable 34-meter antenna is now talking with our spacecraft,” said Bradford Arnold, DSN project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “Even though pandemic restrictions and the recent weather conditions in Spain have been significant challenges, the staff in Madrid persevered, and I am proud to welcome DSS-56 to the global DSN family.”

More About the Deep Space Network

In addition to Spain, the Deep Space Network has ground stations in California (Goldstone) and Australia (Canberra). This configuration allows mission controllers to communicate with spacecraft throughout the solar system at all times during Earth’s rotation.

The forerunner to the DSN was established in January 1958 when JPL was contracted by the U.S. Army to deploy portable radio tracking stations in California, Nigeria, and Singapore to receive telemetry of the first successful U.S. satellite, Explorer 1. Shortly after JPL was transferred to NASA on Dec. 3, 1958, the newly-formed U.S. civilian space program established the Deep Space Network to communicate with all deep space missions. It has been in continuous operation since 1963 and remains the backbone of deep space communications for NASA and international missions, supporting historic events such as the Apollo Moon landings and checking in on our interstellar explorers, Voyager 1 and 2.

The Deep Space Network is managed by JPL for SCaN, which is located at NASA’s headquarters within the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate. The Madrid station is managed on NASA’s behalf by Spain’s national research organization, Instituto Nacional de Técnica Aeroespacial (National Institute of Aerospace Technology).

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6 Things to Know About NASA’s Mars Helicopter on Its Way to Mars

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2. Mars won’t make it easy for Ingenuity to attempt the first powered, controlled flight on another planet.

Because the Mars atmosphere is so thin, Ingenuity is designed to be light, with rotor blades that are much larger and spin much faster than what would be required for a helicopter of Ingenuity’s mass on Earth.

The Red Planet also has beyond bone-chilling temperatures, with nights as cold as minus 130 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 90 degrees Celsius) at Jezero Crater, the rover and helicopter’s landing site. These temperatures will push the original design limits of the off-the-shelf parts used in Ingenuity. Tests on Earth at the predicted temperatures indicate Ingenuity’s parts should work as designed, but the team is looking forward to the real test on Mars.

“Mars isn’t exactly pulling out the welcome mat,” said Tim Canham, Ingenuity’s operations lead at JPL. “One of the first things Ingenuity has to do when it gets to Mars is just survive its first night.”

3. Ingenuity relies on the Mars 2020 Perseverance mission for safe passage to Mars and for operations on the Red Planet’s surface.

Ingenuity is nestled sideways under the belly of the Perseverance rover with a cover to protect it from debris kicked up during landing. Both the rover and the helicopter are safely ensconced inside a clamshell-like spacecraft entry capsule during the 293-million-mile (471-million-kilometer) journey to Mars. The power system on the Mars 2020 spacecraft periodically charges Ingenuity’s batteries on the way there.

To reach the Martian surface, Ingenuity rides along with Perseverance as it lands. The rover’s entry, descent, and landing system features a supersonic parachute, new “brains” for avoiding hazards autonomously, and components for the sky crane maneuver, which lowers the rover onto Mars from a descent vehicle. Only about 50% of the attempts to land on Mars, by any space agency, have been successful.

Once a suitable site to deploy the helicopter is found, the rover’s Mars Helicopter Delivery System will shed the landing cover, rotate the helicopter to a legs-down configuration, and gently drop Ingenuity on the surface in the first few months after landing. Throughout the helicopter’s commissioning and flight test campaign, the rover will assist with the communications back-and-forth from Earth. The rover team also plans to collect images of Ingenuity.

4. Ingenuity is smart for a small robot.

Delays are an inherent part of communicating with spacecraft across interplanetary distances, which means Ingenuity’s flight controllers at JPL won’t be able to control the helicopter with a joystick. In fact, they won’t be able to look at engineering data or images from each flight until well after the flight takes place.

So Ingenuity will make some of its own decisions based on parameters set by its engineers on Earth. The helicopter has a kind of programmable thermostat, for instance, that will keep it warm on Mars. During flight, Ingenuity will analyze sensor data and images of the terrain to ensure it stays on the flight path designed by project engineers.

5. The Ingenuity team counts success one step at a time.

Given Ingenuity’s experimental nature, the team has a long list of milestones the helicopter must reach before it can take off and land in the spring of 2021. The team will celebrate each milestone:

  • Surviving the cruise to Mars and landing on the Red Planet
  • Safely deploying to the surface from Perseverance’s belly
  • Autonomously keeping warm through the intensely cold Martian nights
  • Autonomously charging itself with the solar panel atop its rotors
  • Successfully communicating to and from the helicopter via a subsystem known as the Mars Helicopter Base Station on the rover

If the first experimental flight test on another planet succeeds, the Ingenuity team will attempt more test flights.

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