When NASA's Perseverance Mars rover launches this summer, lots of folks here on Earth will be along for the ride.
Perseverance is carrying the names of more than 10.9 million people who participated in NASA's "Send Your Name to Mars" campaign, agency officials announced Thursday (March 26).
Engineers used electron beams to stencil the monikers onto three small silicon chips, which were installed, along with a commemorative placard, on Perseverance's body on March 16. The chips also contain the essays of the 155 students who made it to the finals of NASA's rover-naming contest. That contest was won by Alex Mather , a seventh grader from Virginia.
Not to change the topic here:
See Jupiter, Mars and Saturn in Thursday's dawn sky | Space
Early risers this month have been treated to an unusual celestial "pas de trois," as the three brightest superior planets — called "superior" because they move in orbits beyond the Earth from the sun — have been changing positions relative to each other in the dawn twilight. The three planets in question are (in order of brightness), Jupiter, Saturn and Mars.
Jupiter currently rises around 3:45 a.m. local daylight time, but is best seen, especially in telescopes, as dawn is starting to break about 2.5 hours later. At that hour the king-sized world shines fairly low in the southeast with the Teapot of Sagittarius to its right.
See Curiosity's epic new selfie from Mars | Space | EarthSky
While we’re practicing social distancing due to the COVID-19 pandemic, EarthSky’s been posting your #SocialDistanceSelfies from places across Earth. But here’s one from quite a bit farther …
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Curiosity snapped the selfie on February 26, 2020, just before the rover crested the “ Greenheugh Pediment ,” a broad sheet of crumbling bedrock that sits on top of the hill. The image is a stunning 360 degree view of the landscape around the rover, with Curiosity itself the focus of attention. The entire panorama is composed of 86 individual images. At the time the selfie was taken, Curiosity was about 11 feet (3.4 meters) below the spot where it later climbed onto the pediment.
Sols 2715-2716 One More Time – NASA's Mars Exploration Program
As the Edinburgh drill campaign continues, and the CheMin instrument awaits the first taste of the bedrock in front of us, the science team focuses on filling out Greenheugh pediment observations as well as responding to early results we've already received.
Having multiple observations of the same rocks and expanding datasets to cover more area helps put high value results from the drill campaign in context. We don't get to do this too often, except when we stop for a few sols. Also, it makes sense to keep the other instruments busy and get the most science we can while we wait for instruments like SAM and CheMin to process data, which usually takes a few days (it's complicated!).
In case you are keeping track:
European Mars rover delayed until 2022 | Science | AAAS
"We cannot really cut corners," said ESA Director General Jan Wöerner today at a press conference, following a meeting with Roscosmos chief Dmitry Rogozin. "It was a very tough decision, but I'm sure it was the right one."
Although the issues could be resolved in the next few months, Wöerner said there was not enough time to test the mission's software system on the final flight-ready spacecraft. He did not want a repeat of the failure of ESA's first Mars lander, 2016's Schiaparelli, which crashed because of a software error during its descent .
NASA Curiosity rover took a gorgeous Mars selfie to mark a daring climb - CNET
This annotated version of the selfie shows the rover near the Hutton drill hole. The Greenheugh Pediment is above the rover and its climbing destination is marked to the right.
Corona coronavirus hiatus: Euro space agency to put Sun, Mars probes in safe mode while boffins
ESA will pause on-board operations of its spacecraft exploring our Solar System – after sending its mission control center staff home to help contain the coronavirus pandemic.
"Our priority is the health of our workforce, and we will therefore reduce activity on some of our scientific missions, especially on interplanetary spacecraft, which currently require the highest number of personnel on site," said Rolf Densing, direction of operations at ESA and head of the European Space Operations Center (ESOC) in Germany, this week.
Trump's NASA budget request could spell big changes for Mars missions | Space
If President Donald Trump's budget request becomes reality, NASA may need to shuffle some Red Planet missions, including developing a new Mars Ice Mapper.
Trump and his administration sent Congress a budget request for the 2021 fiscal year in February. In its fine print, the Trump administration's 2021 budget request included a few major potential changes to NASA's Mars robotic exploration program. It suggests reducing funding for the 2001 Mars Odyssey and Curiosity programs so drastically that these missions would essentially end, and it introduces a new Mars Ice Mapper orbital mission for the agency to consider.
Happening on Twitter
p.s. kaya hinde ride home last song namin kasi nasa bahay naman tayo lahat #BenAndBenPuhonFBLive BenAndBenMusic (from Philippines) Fri Mar 27 13:53:49 +0000 2020
All aboard, @NASAPersevere! Essays from @NASA's "Name the Rover" contest, along with 10.9+ million names you sent… https://t.co/rmvSK9GVdU NASAJPL (from Pasadena, Calif.) Thu Mar 26 21:15:13 +0000 2020
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