BS: Perseverance Launch - Roll On Mars!

Subject: BS: Perseverance Launch - Roll On Mars!
From: robomatic
Date: 28 Jul 20 - 09:49 PM

Tomorrow (30 July 2020) morning 0730 Eastern Time the Perseverance mission is supposed to blast off. This is the latest of the American exploration vehicles and one of three recent launches to explore Mars.
NASA's web site discussing the launch is here .
The International Business Times has an interesting article here.

The launch date has changed several times this month so if you actually want to see this online, you have to keep yourself informed.

0730AM Eastern Time US = 0330AM Alaska Time = 1230 PM Greenwich, or as we like to say, Zulu time.

This Mars Rover is far more massive than the previous successful units landed on the Red Planet. It is supposed to collect recoverable samples of physical material.

Subject: RE: BS: Perseverance Launch - Roll On Mars!
From: Mr Red
Date: 29 Jul 20 - 01:41 AM

I saw a documentary on U Toob but got a bit confused as to where the motive power came from. No PV. Except on the Marscopter.

Wiki says powered by Plutonium dioxide (110 watts)

Subject: RE: BS: Perseverance Launch - Roll On Mars!
From: robomatic
Date: 29 Jul 20 - 03:45 AM

The NASA fact sheet on Ingenuity the copter says "solar powered and able to recharge".

Meanwhile, in the OP I was in error. The latest blastoff information is for 30 July which is Thursday. And I believe the time is 0750 Eastern Time US which means 0350 in Alaska and 1250 PM in Greenwich UK.

Subject: RE: BS: Perseverance Launch - Roll On Mars!
From: Donuel
Date: 29 Jul 20 - 03:49 PM

Cool
When they launch automated fuel factories to be placed on Mars for return space ships will be interesting for a couple reasons.
1, they are serious in the long run or 2 If they don't, it may indicate propulsion is in a new age and we haven't been told.

Subject: RE: BS: Perseverance Launch - Roll On Mars!
From: Rapparee
Date: 29 Jul 20 - 10:31 PM

Probably won't find any McDonald's wrappers....

Subject: RE: BS: Perseverance Launch - Roll On Mars!
From: Donuel
Date: 30 Jul 20 - 07:33 AM

After launch in an hour it will take only 7 months to get to Mars.
Contrary to the title there is no proof there is a roll on Mars.
Nor are there pastries, donuts, brioche or cookies.

Subject: RE: BS: Perseverance Launch - Roll On Mars!
From: robomatic
Date: 30 Jul 20 - 07:40 AM

Watching now on https://www.space.com/17933-nasa-television-webcasts-live-space-tv.html

Subject: RE: BS: Perseverance Launch - Roll On Mars!
From: robomatic
Date: 30 Jul 20 - 07:56 AM

Up and away. Good launch, on first burn to orbit.

Subject: RE: BS: Perseverance Launch - Roll On Mars!
From: robomatic
Date: 30 Jul 20 - 08:05 AM

The explainers are saying how due to the relative orbits between Earth and Mars we had a launch 'window'

First burn gets us into a park orbit. That allows the package to orient itself and prepare for a second burn which will enable the device to leave orbit and head not so much for Mars as to where Mars will be.

Arrival expected for February 2021.

Second burn to start in under half an hour.

Subject: RE: BS: Perseverance Launch - Roll On Mars!
From: JHW
Date: 30 Jul 20 - 08:12 AM

When we've filled Earth with cans and pizza boxes and disposable masks there'll be Mars to go and spoil.

Subject: RE: BS: Perseverance Launch - Roll On Mars!
From: Donuel
Date: 30 Jul 20 - 08:28 AM

byo air

Subject: RE: BS: Perseverance Launch - Roll On Mars!
From: robomatic
Date: 30 Jul 20 - 08:39 AM

Second burn underway. Takes about six minutes.

Subject: RE: BS: Perseverance Launch - Roll On Mars!
From: robomatic
Date: 30 Jul 20 - 09:00 AM

Second burn is complete.
Separation of the payload is complete.
The Perseverance Mission is on the way to Mars.

Destination Jezero Crater on or about 18 February 2021.

What makes this mission different from earlier rover missions:

Much larger and more sophisticated rover, powered by a nuclear battery.
First powered aerial extraplanetary explorer "Ingenuity" powered by solar.
New exploratory location.
Collection of samples for analysis to be brought back to Earth labs.

There is a concentration on evidence of life having been or still being on Mars.

Just hope we can avoid running into Musk's roaming Tesla on the way!

Subject: RE: BS: Perseverance Launch - Roll On Mars!
From: Mrrzy
Date: 30 Jul 20 - 09:21 AM

I read two things about this:

One, the samples cant be analyzed in situ, but are to be brought back by a later mission. How on Earth, um, how in the world, um, how is said later mission going to take off?

Two, this phrasing from a Guardian article on the search for "lyfe" always bugs me: All living organisms on Earth take in energy, use and change it, and then release it in a less useful form as waste. Less useful to that organism, perfectly useful to another for whom it is substinence, not waste. Nature doesn't waste shit, literally or metaphorically.

If we stopped referring to things *we* don't want as waste, it wouldn't be wasted. This is how reusing, repurposing, and recycling work.

And I don't know how I feel about the word Lyfe for It's life, Jim, but not as we know it, not as we know it, not as we know it. And now it's a music thread.

Subject: RE: BS: Perseverance Launch - Roll On Mars!
From: robomatic
Date: 30 Jul 20 - 08:40 PM

We come in peace, shoot to kill, shoot to kill, shoot to kill....

I 'member that old song aired on Doctor Demento.

The channel that showed the Perseverance launch on Space.com went on to interview astronauts on the International Space Station, two Americans are headed for an old fashioned capsule splash down in the sea over the weekend. One of them was going on about recycling the very water they drink, and the interview seemed to me to abruptly end at that point!

Subject: RE: BS: Perseverance Launch - Roll On Mars!
From: Donuel
Date: 30 Jul 20 - 09:27 PM

I hope we won't infect Mars moss with Covid 19. %^{

Subject: RE: BS: Perseverance Launch - Roll On Mars!
From: Mrrzy
Date: 01 Aug 20 - 11:03 AM

Bingo, robomatic!

Meanwhile, on the tower [get *that* regerence?] does anybody know how they'll take off from Mars to bring samples back?

Subject: RE: BS: Perseverance Launch - Roll On Mars!
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 01 Aug 20 - 11:23 AM

Just think of the starving people, all that wasted money would feed :(

Subject: RE: BS: Perseverance Launch - Roll On Mars!
From: Donuel
Date: 02 Aug 20 - 04:10 PM

It's been an hour, to my untrained eye, of trying to open the hatch that looks welded shut from reentry. The official explanation is that they are venting fumes. It looks like they have tried a dozen different tools... It opened...