SPACE reports, “It appears that China has moved up its agenda for bringing Mars samples to Earth, and aims to do so before the U.S. achieves this same goal. NASA’s Mars sample return plan, a joint effort with the European Space Agency (ESA), continues to be scrutinized. A newly launched strategy review team will advise agency leadership about what to do now and offer recommendations by year’s end, or early next year.”
Full Story (SPACE)
Tag: Mars
NASA’s Perseverance Rover Captures Stunning View of Big Mars Crater
SPACE reports, “NASA’s Perseverance rover took a break from its Mars mountaineering expedition recently to survey its old stomping grounds. The car-sized Perseverance landed on the floor of the 28-mile-wide (45-kilometer-wide) Jezero Crater in February 2021 to hunt for signs of past Mars life and collect dozens of samples for future return to Earth.
Full Story (SPACE)
Perseverance Rover Finds Mysterious Boulder “Never Observed Before” on Mars
CBS News reports, “While exploring a crater on Mars that may give scientists insights into life that potentially once existed there, NASA said its Perseverance rover made an unprecedented discovery. The rover, which landed on the Red Planet in 2021 specifically to probe the ancient Jezero crater, found a mysterious light-toned boulder earlier this month that was the first of its kind seen on Martian land.”
Full Story (CBS News)
AIAA Statement on the End of the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter Mission
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 31, 2024 – Reston, Va. – The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) CEO Dan Dumbacher made the following statement:
“We join NASA, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and the entire aerospace community in marking the end of mission for the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter on 25 January 2024. What a mission it was – 72 powered controlled flights on another planet.
We’ll remember the historic date and location of Ingenuity’s first flight, 19 April 2021, at Jezero Crater, Wright Brothers Field, Mars. Ingenuity’s remarkable mission of taking off-world risks proves anything is possible. Going from a flight test experiment to an operational scout is an amazing accomplishment.
AIAA was honored to present the 2021 AIAA Space Systems Award to the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter team, “For the design and flight test validation of the first helicopter designed for flight at Mars.” In addition, ASCEND was honored to host the 2021 NASA JPL William H. Pickering Lecture on the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter.
Over the years, innovators have chronicled their work on rotorcraft designed for missions on other planets and moons by authoring articles for AIAA peer-reviewed journals, books, and meeting papers for AIAA forums. Their original research results and technological progress have been published in AIAA’s Aerospace Research Central (ARC) at arc.aiaa.org, the leading source of aerospace industry archives. AIAA is committed to ensuring students and professionals have access to the most important advances in aerospace science and technology through ARC. Read more about AIAA publications on the technology and development of the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter at aiaa.org/ingenuitymarshelicopter.
On behalf of the 30,000 professional and student members of AIAA, we salute the whole team who made the dream of the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter a reality. We admire your engineering determination in combination with your innovative and inspirational thinking.
Ingenuity Mars Helicopter has shaped the future of aerospace.”
AIAA Media Contact: Rebecca Gray, [email protected], 804-397-5270 cell
About AIAA
The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) is the world’s largest aerospace technical society. With nearly 30,000 individual members from 91 countries, and 100 corporate members, AIAA brings together industry, academia, and government to advance engineering and science in aviation, space, and defense. For more information, visit aiaa.org, and follow AIAA on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
Perseverance Collects Seventh Mars Rock Sample
SPACE reports that NASA’s Perseverance rover “drilled into another Martian rock and socked away the resulting core, mission team members announced via Twitter” Tuesday. The sample is the seventh collected by Perseverance on Mars thus far. Perseverance is to collect another rock sample from the Jezero Crater before heading on to the Jezero river delta.
Full Story (SPACE)
Perseverance Explores Jezero River Delta on Mars
CNET News reports that NASA’s Perseverance rover has arrived at the Jezero Crater river delta on Mars. NASA Science Mission Directorate Associate Administrator Thomas Zurbuchen said Tuesday, “The delta at Jezero Crater promises to be a veritable geologic feast and one of the best locations on Mars to look for signs of past microscopic life.”
Full Story (CNET News)
Perseverance Rover Captures First-Ever Sound of Mars “Dust Devil”
The Washington Post reports that scientists have recorded the sound of a “dust devil” as it made “a direct hit” on NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover, “peppering the spacecraft with dust and whispering into a microphone that the team had smartly included in their package of instruments. The trove of data coming from the encounter has thrilled scientists, who are keenly aware of the outsize influence Martian dust has on the planet’s climate.”
Full Story (Washington Post)
Perseverance Rover Completes Sample Depot on Mars
CNET News reports that NASA’s Perseverance rover has created “the first sample depot on another world. NASA JPL announced Saturday that the rover has successfully placed 10 tubes on the Martian ground in a specific pattern that would allow a future mission to come fetch them if needed.” The rover’s efforts “have been in service of a big idea: getting pieces of Mars back to Earth for close study by scientists. Researchers hope they might tell the story of whether the red planet was once home to microbial life. The sample depot is an important part of the upcoming Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission to bring Martian rocks to Earth in the 2030s.” NASA called completion of the depot “a major milestone that involved precision planning and navigation to make sure the tubes could be collected by two helicopters from the MSR mission.”
Full Story (CNET News)
Lockheed Martin Contracted by NASA to Design, Test New Nuclear-Powered Propulsion System
The New York Times reports NASA and DARPA have announced that Lockheed Martin has been selected “to design, build and test a propulsion system that could one day speed astronauts on a trip to Mars.” The nearly $500 million program “is named DRACO, short for the Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Operations.” The DRACO development “is to culminate with a flight test of the nuclear-thermal engine.” Kirk Shireman, a vice president at Lockheed Martin, “said the launch was currently scheduled for late 2025 or early 2026.”
Full Story (The New York Times)
Pew Poll: Americans See Lunar, Mars Missions as Low Priorities for NASA
The Washington Post reports most Americans believe NASA’s top priority should be monitoring asteroids that could strike the Earth instead of returning astronauts to the Moon, according to a poll released Thursday. For respondents in the Pew Research Center survey, only 12 percent of “adults think returning astronauts to the surface of the moon should be NASA’s top priority.” A human landing on “Mars is even less popular: Only 11 percent said it should be the top priority.” By contrast, 60 percent “said monitoring asteroids should be the agency’s top priority; 50 percent said monitoring climate change should be NASA’s top priority.”
Full Story (Washington Post)
Mars Rover Collects Samples which Indicate Possible Life on Mars
The Washington Post reported that NASA rover Perseverance “has hit what scientists are hoping is pay dirt.” Martian rocks excavated “by the rover show signs of a watery past and are loaded with the kind of organic molecules that are the foundation for life as we know it.” Scientists collaborating on the mission “also say the rock samples, which the rover has cached in tubes for a future return to Earth, have the right chemical recipe to preserve evidence of ancient Martian life, if it ever existed.” The new Perseverance research “is detailed in three extensive studies published Wednesday, one in the journal Science and two in the journal Science Advances.”
Aviation Today (Washington Post)
Rolls-Royce Nuclear Engine Could Allow Crewed Trip to Mars
Gizmodo reports that Rolls-Royce Holdings “is getting into the nuclear reactor business.” The British aerospace engineering company “says it’s developing a micro-nuclear reactor that the company hopes could be a source of fuel for long trips to the Moon and Mars.” As humanity begins “to venture back into space, with crewed missions scheduled to visit the Moon and Mars within the next two decades, the technology that moves us throughout the solar system will be a pivotal part of that journey.” Rolls-Royce teased “the design of its Rolls-Royce micro-reactor for spaceflight with a digital mockup posted to Twitter last week:” As the company “explained in a tweet, the reactor will rely on uranium, a common fuel used in nuclear fission.” Nuclear fission “involves bombarding an atom with a neutron.” The splitting atom releases energy, “and that energy could be used to propel a rocket.” Nuclear reactors “have been used to power things like submarines, but its use in spaceflight has often been overlooked in favor of chemical-based propulsion.”
Full Story (Gizmodo)
NASA Refining Designs of Mars Helicopters
SPACE reports that NASA is drawing on experience from the Ingenuity Mars helicopter’s nearly 50 flights in designing the two Mars Sample Recovery Helicopters for the Mars Sample Return campaign. At the American Astronautical Society Guidance, Navigation and Control Conference, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory Chief Engineer of Autonomy and Aerial Flight Håvard Fjær Grip “outlined plans for how Ingenuity’s guidance, navigation, and control system would be adapted and extended.” In an interview afterwards, he said, “What’s fairly clear is that the fundamental rotorcraft configuration and how we control it has been worked out and is heritage that can be relied upon.”
Full Story (SPACE)
NASA to Launch Two More Mini-Helicopters to Mars to Help Return Samples
The AP reports that NASA “is launching two more mini helicopters to Mars in its effort to return Martian rocks and soil samples to Earth.” Under the plan, “NASA’s Perseverance rover will do double duty and transport the cache to the rocket that will launch them off the red planet a decade from now.” The rover “already has gathered 11 samples with more rock drilling planned.” The most recent sample “holds the greatest promise of containing possible evidence of ancient Martian life, said Arizona State University’s Meenakshi Wadhwa, chief scientist for the retrieval effort.” The planned mini helicopters “will be modeled after NASA’s successful Ingenuity, which has made 29 flights since arriving with Perseverance at Mars early last year.”
Full Story (Associated Press)
NASA: Pair of Ingenuity-Inspired Helicopters Will be Part of Mars Sample Return Mission
CNET News reports that NASA said Wednesday a pair of rotorcraft inspired by the Ingenuity helicopter “will be a key component of a mission to bring pristine Martian rock samples from the Jezero Crater to Earth.” The Mars Sample Return project “was going to involve a rover that could fetch the samples but would’ve required its own lander. The change to helicopters was made during the conceptual design phase of the mission.” NASA’s Perseverance rover is “gathering up small samples of Mars rocks and stashing them in tubes for safekeeping. The Mars Sample Return mission, or MSR, is a complex and ambitious project that’ll involve landing on Mars, picking up the tubes, rocketing them off the planet and delivering them to a spacecraft in orbit. NASA is working with the European Space Agency on the program.”
Full Story (CNET News)
ASCEND Guiding Coalition Members to Speak at U.S. Chamber of Commerce Space Event on 3 December in Washington, D.C.
MEDIA ADVISORY
CONTACT: Michele McDonald
703.264.7542
[email protected]
26 November 2019 – Reston, Va. – AIAA members Ellen Stofan, Mary Lynne Dittmar, and Jim Chilton will be speaking at LAUNCH: The Space Economy, a space summit hosted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on 3 December 2019.
Stofan, Dittmar and Chilton are members of the Guiding Coalition of ASCEND, the world’s first outcomes-focused, cross-disciplinary event designed to accelerate the building of our off-world future.. ASCEND’s Guiding Coalition is led by former Blue Origin President Rob Meyerson.
Who:
Ellen Stofan has more than 25 years of experience in space-related organizations and has a deep research background in planetary geology. She was the chief scientist at NASA and is now the John and Adrienne Mars Director at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.
Mary Lynne Dittmar is president and CEO of the Coalition for Deep Space Exploration, a recognized source for policy, technical and business information in aerospace. She is a member of the National Space Council Users’ Advisory Group, the FAA’s Commercial Space Transportation Committee, and the Space Studies Board of the National Academies.
Jim Chilton is senior vice president of the Space and Launch division of Boeing Defense, Space & Security. The Space and Launch portfolio includes the International Space Station, the CST-100 Starliner commercial crew vehicle, NASA’s Space Launch System, and other areas.
Rob Meyerson is the executive producer of ASCEND and leads the Guiding Coalition. He is the founder and CEO of Delalune Space, a management consulting company focused on aerospace, mobility and technology sectors. Rob is the former president of Blue Origin. Note: Meyerson will not be attending the event but will be available for interviews.
What: LAUNCH: The Space Economy
When: Tuesday, 3 December 2019
Time: 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Where: U.S. Chamber of Commerce
1615 H. Street NW
Washington, D.C., 20062
For more information about LAUNCH: The Space Economy hosted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, please visit https://www.uschamber.com/event/launch-the-space-economy
About ASCEND
A new event launched by AIAA, ASCEND is designed to drive the $1 trillion space economy forward, bringing together technical and business leaders to solve problems that affect the entire planet and beyond. The global eventis convening traditional and nontraditional players to help build the space economy. ASCEND’s inaugural event is 16–18 November 2020 in Las Vegas, Nevada. For more information, please visit www.ascend.events.
About AIAA
The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) is the world’s largest aerospace technical society. With nearly 30,000 individual members from 85 countries and 95 corporate members, AIAA brings together industry, academia, and government to advance engineering and science in aviation, space, and defense. For more information, aiaa.org, or follow us on Twitter @AIAA.
China to Land Tianwen-1 Probe on Mars Between Saturday and Wednesday
The AP reports that China “says its Mars probe and accompanying rover are expected to land on the red planet sometime between Saturday and Wednesday Beijing time.” The China National Space Administration “said in a brief notice that the Tianwen-1 probe has collected a large amount of scientific data since entering Mars orbit on Feb. 10 and the window for setting down on an icy area of the planet known as Utopia Planitia was determined by ‘current flying conditions.”
Full Story (Reuters)
Perseverance Rover Flexes Robotic Arm for First Time on Mars
SPACE reports that NASA officials gave an update from the Mars Perseverance Rover’s Twitter account Wednesday, which tweeted, “This week I’ve been doing lots of health checkouts, getting ready to get to work. … I’ve checked many tasks off my list, including instrument tests, imaging, and getting my arm moving. Warming up for a marathon of science.” Perseverance’s robotic arm has flexed for the first time since arriving on Mars, unfurling to a total length of seven feet. The arm holds the rover’s “drill that will collect samples, … as well as the tools that will store those samples.” NASA will provide an official mission update during a Friday news conference, to be held at 3:30 p.m. EST.
Full Story (SPACE)
NASA Flies Ingenuity for Fifth Time
The New York Times reported that on Friday, NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter made its fifth flight on Mars, making “a successful one-way trip to another flat patch of Mars more than the length of a football field away. The spot where it landed will serve as its base of operations for the next month at least, beginning a new phase of the mission where it will serve as a scout for its larger robotic companion, the Perseverance rover.” Ingenuity “retraced the course of its previous flight, heading south for 423 feet at an altitude of 16 feet.” Instead “of turning around, it stopped and climbed higher, to 33 feet, to take some pictures of the area. It then set down, 108 seconds after it had taken off.”
Full Story (New York Times)
NASA Releases Footage of Ingenuity Helicopter Flight
SPACE reported that NASA “has just unveiled incredible new footage of its helicopter Ingenuity on a record-breaking flight on the Red Planet last month.” The video “shows the tiny Red Planet chopper as it flew across a distance of 2,310 feet (704 meters) at a speed of 12 mph (19 kph), with a view of Red Planet sands whirring by below.”
Full Story (SPACE)
Video
NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter Captures Video of Flight (NASA JPL via YouTube)