Humanity's first-ever attempt at flight on another world is about to take place, as NASA gears up for the inaugural test of its "Ingenuity" Mars helicopter this week.
And while there no immediate cause for concern, engineers still wanted to wait and check to make sure everything was okay before attempting flight.
"The helicopter is safe and healthy and communicated its full telemetry set to Earth," NASA said. "The helicopter team is reviewing telemetry to diagnose and understand the issue."
NASA's Mars Helicopter to Make First Flight Attempt Sunday – NASA's Mars Exploration Program
Ingenuity's Blades Are Released: NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter unlocked its blades, allowing them to spin freely, on April 7, 2021, the 47th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. This image was captured by the Mastcam-Z imager aboard NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover on the following sol, April 8, 2021. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU. Full image and caption ›
“While Ingenuity carries no science instruments, the little helicopter is already making its presence felt across the world, as future leaders follow its progress toward an unprecedented first flight,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for science at NASA Headquarters. “We do tech demos like this to push the envelope of our experience and provide something on which the next missions and the next generation can build.
NASA's tiny helicopter is ready to fly on Mars
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As soon as this weekend, a 4-pound helicopter could perform the first controlled flight on another world as NASA teams prepare for Ingenuity's biggest milestone on its Mars mission.
The small helicopter successfully unfurled from the belly of NASA's Mars rover, Perseverance, and was able to survive, creating its own power from the sun. Now, NASA says it's targeting Sunday, April 11 around 8 p.m. for its first flight attempt.
It's possible the first blade-spin could shift as Ingenuity's teams check the weather and perform some preflight checks, according to NASA.
NASA names Mars sites for author Octavia Butler, engineer Jakob van Zyl
A celebrated Black science fiction author who believed she could write better stories than those in B-grade movies, and a former NASA senior director who gazed at the stars while growing up in a remote part of Africa have been honored with Mars Perseverance sites named after them.
The names of Octavia Butler , a visionary award-winning writer , and Jakob van Zyl , a brilliant engineer and manager who helped send spacecraft across the solar system, are now part of the Perseverance rover’s mission. Their names now designate where the rover landed and where it will watch the Ingenuity helicopter fly.
NASA's Curiosity Rover Is Still Probing Secrets About Mars' Past Water
Curiosity will likely uncover more secrets about Mars' past as it explores the foothills of Mount Sharp, where billions of years of Martian history are embedded in 3 miles of rock layers. Each era of the planet's history left different marks on the mountain — layers of sediment from the flow of an ancient river, clay that once settled at the bottom of the lake, or dust and sand blown across a dry valley. As the rover climbs, it's getting a chronological tour of Mars' climate history.
Astro Bob: Mystery rainbow on Mars explained | Duluth News Tribune
Rainbows usually don't usually stir up controversy. But earlier this week the Mars Perseverance rover took a photo of one that did. It looked like the real thing: a big bow with colors in the correct order from red outside to blue inside. So what was it? And are rainbows even possible on Mars?
The European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter photographed these cirrus-like clouds made of water-ice crystals in March 2016. (ESA)
Mars did not dry up all at once, says study : The Tribune India
The findings are based on data from NASA's Curiosity Mars rover which continues to explore the base of Mount Sharp on the Red Planet. (NASA)
Mars had drier and wetter eras before drying up completely about three billion years ago, says a new study which suggests that the Red Planet did not dry up all at once.
"A primary goal of the Curiosity mission was to study the transition between the habitable environment of the past, to the dry and cold climate that Mars has now," said Roger Wiens, a coauthor on the paper and scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory, where he is on the ChemCam team.
Your horoscope for the week ahead: Mars and Jupiter will team up to help you achieve your
Last Sunday's New Moon in the action-sign of Aries is giving this week a blast of vim and vigour. Mars, ruler of Aries, and Jupiter, ruler of Sagittarius, are providing an abundance of fire power.
Both planets will reach a high energy trine alignment on Saturday. On the way they will sextile the Sun on Tuesday and Thursday. Mars is known as the god of war, but in your personal world, he is like the mighty Hercules, known as Heracles by the ancient Greeks. He proved his mettle by accomplishing the famous Twelve Labours. He is endowed with a superlative degree of valour, hardiness, endurance, good humour, pity for the weak, generosity, and an adventurous spirit.
CO2 mitigation on Earth and magnesium civilization on Mars | EurekAlert! Science News
IMAGE: Bubble the air in water with a pinch of magnesium and we will get fuel. view more
Excessive CO 2 emissions are a major cause of climate change, and hence reducing the CO 2 levels in the Earth's atmosphere is key to limit adverse environmental effects. Rather than just capture and store CO 2 , it would be desirable to use it as carbon feedstock for fuel production to achieve the target of "net-zero-emissions energy systems".
Brain-cell bouquet and snaps from Mars — March’s best science images
Big bird. Hundreds of starlings flocked together above Lough Ennell in County Westmeath, Ireland, in a stunning murmuration that photographer James Crombie captured on 3 March. The birds are nesting in the reeds around the lake, and take to the sky every four or five days around sunset. It took Crombie hundreds of photographs to capture this “perfect” shot, a moment in which the flock took the shape of a giant bird.
Rocket stacking. Engineers assemble the twin booster rockets for NASA’s massive Space Launch System (SLS) — the first deep-space rocket since Saturn V , which sent the first astronauts to the Moon. Since November, workers have been using a huge crane to vertically stack segments of the boosters at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida (pictured).
Happening on Twitter
NASA's $85 Million 'Mars Helicopter' Is About To Attempt Flight On Another Planet For The First Time Ever… https://t.co/NTbQqExx0p ForbesTech Mon Apr 12 15:38:12 +0000 2021
NASA's Mars helicopter Ingenuity will make a historic attempt at the first powered flight on another planet Sunday.… https://t.co/9t1UlayJ5h WSJ (from New York, NY) Sat Apr 10 16:15:05 +0000 2021
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