What "weed need" is a space mission!

[LaurV]

Yeah!



Just seen it! (I didn't stay my eyes were already fallen into my mouth and they were looking through between the teeth...)

[MooMoo2]

Originally Posted by Dr Sardonicus

It made it!

I made it, too (along with 10,932,294 other people)

https://mars.nasa.gov/news/8634/109-...ce-mars-rover/

[Xyzzy]

Now there are two planets with more Linux computers than Windows computers.

[firejuggler]

On Twitter, I"ve found a very nice "colab"
It will allow you to play with Perseverance image data
https://colab.research.google.com/dr...SpsssLH3vp5vX_

# Perseverance Mars Rover Raw Image Playground

This notebook lets you query the raw image feed at https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/multimedia/raw-images/.  It retrieves the image entries and places them into a dictionary so you can fetch the data, load the images, and play around with them.

Leave a comment here or send me a tweet over at https://twitter.com/robertcadena/

The first code cell below imports some libraries we'll need for fetching data from the internet and declares a couple of useful python functions and classes.  Run it, but ignore the contents for now.

[MattcAnderson]

Perseverance rover and helicopter have started their mission. Hooray for the whole team that made it happen. And also yahoo for the funding system.

Regards,
Matt

[Dr Sardonicus]

It seems that systems engineer Ian Clark used the pattern of red and white in the rover's parachute to encode a message and the location of JPL.

[Dr Sardonicus]

SpaceX Starship lands upright, then explodes in latest test

The shiny bullet-shaped rocketship remained intact this time at touchdown, prompting SpaceX commentator John Insprucker to declare, "third time's a charm as the saying goes" before SpaceX ended its webcast of the test.

But then the Starship exploded and was tossed in the air, before slamming down into the ground in flames.

[xilman]

Originally Posted by Dr Sardonicus

SpaceX Starship lands upright, then explodes in latest test

This is causing a significant issue: whether it counts as one launch or two.

[retina]

AFAICT those flaps would be almost completely useless on Mars, and completely useless on the Moon. So how is the Starship intended to land in those places.

[Uncwilly]

Originally Posted by retina

AFAICT those flaps would be almost completely useless on Mars, and completely useless on the Moon. So how is the Starship intended to land in those places.

If you look at the renders of the Lunar variant of SS, there are no flaps. It will use 1 sea-level Raptor and 1 vac Raptor for most of the braking. Then for the last bit it will use 9-12 smaller rockets further up the rocket (so it won't blast everything). On Mars the SS will head in headshield forward (axis of the craft perpendicular to its direction of travel.). It will bleed of much speed that way, then it transition to tail first and fire up the rockets. The flaps will still provide control. And it will have (currently does) RCS, because that is needed in space. So that will add to the controllability.

[chalsall]

Originally Posted by Uncwilly

So that will add to the controllability.

Yup.

Where you have even a little bit of atmosphere that can (or at least, might) be leveraged it should be considered. Multiple paths through Mars' weak atmosphere have been used in the past to circularize orbits.

I suspect that when landing on moons without atmosphere, the belly-flop maneuver won't be used.

But, perhaps, this is a two-way trip. And so the aerodynamic surfaces will be useful on their way back to terra-firma.

I could, of course, be entirely incorrect.