You can also watch an EDL visualization in your browser: https://eyes.nasa.gov/apps/mars2020/#/home

And read about how it will use Terrain Relative Navigation to find a safe landing spot: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/a-neil-armstrong-for-mars-land...

Perseverance is phenomenally complex, its Sample Caching System alone contains 3,000+ parts and two robotic arms. So exited for all the sciencing this nuclear-powered, sample-drilling, laser-zapping behemoth can do when it joins its friends on the only planet (known) to be inhabited solely by robots.

Edit: Percy is about to release its two 77 kg Cruise Mass Balance Devices (is this what NASA calls 'weights'?) to setup the right lift-to-drag ratio for entry. Mars InSight will be listening for the 14,000 km/hr impacts of these weights, providing useful calibration data. We wrote about this in this week's issue of our space-related newsletter, Orbital Index - https://orbitalindex.com/archive/2021-02-17-Issue-104/

It's a great achievement with some really interesting work done on the landing algorithms with terrain recognition and it seemed to have worked exceptionally well.

Looking forward for the next landing in May of the Chinese rover and all the science these robots will produce. Also, the test of Ingenuity, the helicopter, will be very interesting to watch, that could really pave the way for a different exploration style in the future.

And finally, maybe the next transfer window will already see some Starships, that would really change everything.

The Nasa person they have helping narrate what's going on is so genuinely happy the landing went well. It made me kinda tear up. It's infectious just how excited all these people are about this project. Also, I was a bit worried he was going to pass out. 10/10, would watch again (and probably will with my kids)

First surface photo is in too!

https://i.imgur.com/C2s1job.jpg

Watching the live feed was a blast. When they said they received the exact landing coordinates I was extremely curious to see it plotted vs their targeted landing zone, but unfortunately they haven't shown it yet. However, I could audibly hear an engineer in the background say "Oof, well, we'll take it!"

Anyone seen anything about the precise location yet?

Seeing the engineers and scientists celebrating the successful landing was one the best things I've seen in a LONG while. Very live affirming and inspiring to me!

Clean feed here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPrbJ63qUc4

EDIT: Congrats to the team! Great success

Shout out to the team member with the "This is fine" plush dog on their desk.

I love space science and engineering! It's such a beacon of hope and a demonstration of what we can do when we work hard and innovate. And it's pretty interesting in its own right.

It's great to see NASA livestreaming in similar quality/fashion to spacex. It reminds me of watching the NASA feeds on public television in the 90's but much more nicely produced.

Watching these is always a stressful experience, I can't imagine what it would be like sitting in that room, praying that the object you spend years of work on is able to land by itself 7 light-minutes away.

I'm looking forward to what Perseverance will teach us.

My personal preference is the JPL raw feed (here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPrbJ63qUc4) but I think that more people watching space here is better! Great link!

I included this the other day in the previous Perseverance thread but if you're excited for the Perseverance EDL video hopefully Doug Ellison's composite video of Curiosity's landing (from a single camera) can tie folks over in the mean time! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZioPhfxnSY

What an accomplishment for mankind. Congratulations to NASA, JPL and the whole team.

Touchdown confirmed!! Congrats NASA.

Watching the stream, it's striking the difference in employee age between NASA and SpaceX. I won't speculate on the reasons, but I wish the best to the Perseverance team!

They have put onboard, microphones for the first time, two of them. We should be able to get some recorded sounds of Martian surface soon.

The EDL phase was quite complex this time. The cameras took pictures of the surface while landing and compared them to the maps it had from orbital missions. Using these two, it decided in realtime, which place would be the best of the its landing. This made it possible for it land in a more difficult terrain, like the crater where it landed.

Any JPL/NASA HN users that could comment? That would be beyond awesome!

Great job, mission!

I'm excited for the HD video of the landing that was promised.

They have a live telemetry animation web app, but I am currently getting a 503 from cloudfront.

https://eyes.nasa.gov/apps/mars2020/

Space exploration is unlike anything else. Perfect combination of exploring unknowns + badass robots + science.

A super exciting and well-executed landing with years of practice ahead of time to make it look easy. Things I'm looking forward to: - Sample collection and caching for pickup by a future sample return mission

- Flying an experimental helicopter on Mars

- Gauging the habitability of its landing region (Jezero Crater, a paleo-lakebed with preserved river delta and sediments) and hunting for ancient microbial biosignatures (with lasers!)

- A drill (that can cut intact rock cores, rather than pulverizing them like Curiosity)

- An ISRU experiment that makes oxygen from CO2

- Way more advanced autonomous navigation

Also on https://www.twitch.tv/nasa

They were showing off a model of the rover, I did not realize just how large this one is!

Helicopters on Mars, what a time to be alive!

Currently watching it using Streamlink [0] to watch in VLC. This is so exciting! Wishing them, and the rover, all the best in the landing!

[0] https://streamlink.github.io/

This is so awesome. Go Nasa!

I am amazed at what humans have been able to achieve in short time since the Industrial revolution.

After all the negativity of last few months, this brings so much hope.

Waiting for the first human foot touch down on Mars in my lifetime.

I can't find any articles that highlight what that component that "flies away" after the landing is going to do next. Does it just get dumped somewhere? Does it go back into orbit?

Thank you for posting this. Let's witness what science and engineering is capable of achieve today.

It is just amazing to think that a robot is roaming around in Mars, and a second one might be joining today.

IT LANDED!

I'm a bit surprised that NASA doesn't communicate anymore since they landed the rover. I thought other pictures would come today in the morning...

Apparently the copter was made with off-the-shelf parts.

I wonder if I can cop a replica somewhere, and how it would fly considering it is built for martian air

It is just mind boggling that something so far away is autonomously landing on a another planet in such a complicated manner and reporting back to us. Humans can be amazing, this kind of achievements always make me tear up from joy.

I read that the design life of the helicopter is five flights. Does anyone know what the limiting factors are? The brutal cold and abrasive dust both seem like they could contribute but I am curious what the real answer is.

NASA works.

That live stream was epic! It was great to see them so happy :)

Some shower thought: Mars is outside all jurisdictions. Crime on Mars is not possible at the moment. There are no governments on Mars. Meaning, no taxes either.

Mars may become some sort of tax haven, and companies will move their HQs to Mars to avoid taxes. But then, you won't be able to receive correspondence on Mars.

Then, extradition from Mars would be so expensive it would not be even feasible.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gm0b_ijaYMQ

Live feed

Clicking on the solar system icon at the top of this page provides a JavaScript version of NASA's Eyes solar system mapping application. You can look up the Perseverance mission as "Mars 2020" right now.

https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/interactives/

A few years ago I made a mars rover image viewer for a job interview question.

Will have to update it if images from Perseverance become available through the NASA Open APIs.

https://simon-lang.github.io/mars-rover-image-viewer/#/colle...

I saw a video on tiktok a girl uploaded of her dad who was somehow involved in the project. His reaction to the successful landing was so emotional I found myself a little envious. Like the dude had just won the Super Bowl of tech. And didn’t he? What a feeling, congrats to everyone involved!

These accomplishments are so damn inspiring. Reminds me of this West Wing clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2HzHSeV9v8

Part of me is sad that I’m too young to have seen the moon landings. But stuff like this gives me a taste of the thrill of those days. Congratulations to everybody at NASA. Thank you for this inspiring endeavor!

I must say that this mission is highly disappointing. No risks, no major progress, no pushing the limits.

What does NASA have to show for a decade of work, since Curiosity landed in 2012? A toy helicopter, a drill that poops pellets. Billions of dollars and millions of man-hours later, this is the only progress.

The truth is NASA has become extremely conservative and slow. Compare this to the moon landing. NASA went from one man in Earth orbit in 1961 to people walking on the moon as a matter of routine in 1969. That is the pace needed for serious technological progress in space.

We must let NASA die, and let others pursue these feats, people who have a real passion for space exploration. If NASA had only a bit of passion, they would have sent men on this mission, based on all the learnings from Curiosity.

Defund NASA.

How much more time for EDL? Can't find that information anywhere!

It took them approx. 4,881 hours from launch to land approx. 127,770,000 miles away. Is it safe to say that the average speed of the mission can be calculated as 436 miles/hour?

I feel like NASA really stepped up their game with the telecasts, learning lessons from SpaceX. SpaceX has been making an effort to make the livestreams much more accessible.

I can't find this information online... There were four cameras capturing video of the descent. Do we know when that footage will be available? Days? Weeks? Months?

fricken awesome! i love being able to watch these things live. now i have to get back to work making pixels light up at the right time and the right color all day long.

I wish they'd put a robot like this on Europa. Something that could drill into the ice and look for life in the (possible) ocean underneath.

Great, humans are starting to accumulate trash on Mars before we even step foot. Descent stage, heat shield. Pile it up!

I very much enjoyed learning a new acronym: SUFR ("straighten up & fly right", if I remember rightly).

i wish they would stream the video and audio from the craft live as it descends to the martian surface

When can we expect any imagery from Perseverance? The Curiosity photos were incredible.

Fun fact: The rover used software from Bellard's FFMPEG.

So where are the images? (not the black and white fisheye)

It brings tears to my eyes. When the touchdown happens, these people experience a level of joy and satisfaction which I can only dream of while doing my job of optimizing ad clicks and profile photos.

An exceptional feat of the human intellect. Bravo!

im really sad to say that NASAs website is an absolute dumpster fire... does anyone know of a simple repository of all the images and videos captured by each mission? i just want to flip through the pictures perseverance has taken so far without sifting through cancerous news sites.

edit: the closest thing ive found is data.nasa.gov. how hard is it to just generate a fucking simple html website with chronologically ordered images? this is bullshit

edit: ok, here is almost exactly what i wanted: https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/multimedia/raw-images/ the internet really sucks compared to what it might be... go to nasa.gov and click percy mission from the drop down and it takes you to a part of nasa.gov thats filled with eye-cancer tiles and javascript with sensor imaging mixed in with PR images and promotional material. but they tuck the (sort of) clean, organized data into some other website basically? maybe its a small gripe but this way of doing it is disorganized and infuriating.

edit: wow, this website is fucking amazing! you can see the real-time position of all nasa mars vehicles 3D google earth style: https://mars.nasa.gov/explore/mars-now/ anyone who has not looked around in mars.nasa.gov should bookmark that right away

curiosity shots:

https://mars.nasa.gov/raw_images/895098/?site=msl

https://mars.nasa.gov/raw_images/896437/?site=msl

https://mars.nasa.gov/raw_images/895971/?site=msl

https://mars.nasa.gov/raw_images/895971/?site=msl

https://mars.nasa.gov/raw_images/895077/?site=msl

https://mars.nasa.gov/raw_images/891625/?site=msl

https://mars.nasa.gov/raw_images/888957/?site=msl

https://mars.nasa.gov/raw_images/887028/?site=msl

https://mars.nasa.gov/raw_images/886343/?site=msl

Exciting time to be alive!

live or fear.. you have to chose

can't wait for the choppah

Something I don't understand: when they say "X is 1 minute from happening", does that mean it's really 1 minute from happening or does that mean "in 1 minute we'll receive the signal that X has happened"?

Maybe my question makes more sense in the case of "X is happening right now", because then I should either understand "we infer that X should have happened right about now" or "we have confirmed via signal that X has happened", and that's a big big difference.

I know in some cases they explicitly say the latter, so I guess my real real question is, do they just keep the communication delay implied in all countdowns & references in discussion, to avoid confusion?

(ETA: No need to let me know about simultaneity problems in relativity — earth and mars are, relative to c and to macroscopic time scales, essentially not moving relative to each other AFAIK, so that simultaneity is essentially well-defined. My question was about a much more boring classical-universe problem.)

I stopped watching videos like these when they started chanting like some crazy cult when things went well (USA! USA! USA!). No wonder we can't just get along.

I don't get why they had to bring the children into this asking questions constantly. Do we really want to reinforce this is just for children?

SpaceX doesn't do this. They are always top quality. Adults doing professional things in space, that to me is more inspiring to children and young adults.

Can't they have an adult stream and one dumbed down for the children if they really think these things should be dumbed down.

It was better than ESA I guess

I have serious doubts that this actually happened

I never forget a great fosdem talk regarding living on mars. https://archive.fosdem.org/2015/schedule/event/living_on_mar... unfortunately it turned out to be a hoax.

NASA's ability of succeeding at landing things successfully on the first try on foreign bodies since 1969 is mind-blowing.

Meanwhile, SpaceX takes half a dozen tries before managing to do the same on a fully known environment on Earth.