[HomeDefense]

Three countries are due to reach Mars in the next two weeks

Spacecraft from the USA, China, and the UAE will all reach Mars in the next couple of week. It will be interesting to see how many of these missions succeed.

The United Arab Emirates orbiter intends to orbit and map weather conditions for the next two years.

China has an orbiter that will drop a lander in a couple of months.

NASA is sending the first Martian helicopter. It will be part of the Perseverance lander. If it works as planned, that could really expand the exploration capabilities.

This far, the USA is the only country with a history of successful Mars missions.

 

[American Chestnut]

I personally hope the China mission burns up on entry or crashes. Whomever writes the Drudge Report will be so sad.

 

[dmas]

Best transit time between orbits comes every 2 years or so. So missions are sent about sae time. Odd thing about the robot helicopter, i didn't think atmosphere was near thick enough to support helicopters.

 

[HomeDefense]

Best transit time between orbits comes every 2 years or so. So missions are sent about sae time. Odd thing about the robot helicopter, i didn't think atmosphere was near thick enough to support helicopters.

I noted that, as well. I thought it would either need very large blades or the blades that spin very fast.

Mars Helicopter Ingenuity

Atmosphere of Mars

The average surface pressure is only about 610 pascals (0.088 psi) which is less than 1% of the Earth's value.

 

[Sailorsam]

Best transit time between orbits comes every 2 years or so. So missions are sent about same time.

would definitely inspire the conspiracy minded as why three missions in one week.

hope things go well.
(and I hope Chin is willing to share some of his data)
SCIENCE!!!

 

[ajole]

I noted that, as well. I thought it would either need very large blades or the blades that spin very fast.

Mars Helicopter Ingenuity

Atmosphere of Mars

Pretty cool stuff, with some impressive abilities. Now if they could get it to do it with a real payload. Can you imagine what people would pay to be heli-lifted to the top of Everest! We could trade off the discarded oxygen bottles and other trash up there, for the carbon credits.

From WIKI:
"For flight testing, a large vacuum chamber was used to simulate the very low atmospheric pressure of Mars—about 0.6% of standard atmospheric pressure at sea level on Earth—which is the equivalent of a helicopter flying at 34,000 m (112,000 ft) in the atmosphere of Earth. In order to simulate the much reduced gravity field of Mars, 62% of Earth's gravity was offset by a line pulling upwards during flight tests.[11]

 

[HomeDefense]

From the Wiki article:

NASA has invested about US$80 million to build the Mars Helicopter Ingenuity and about US$5 million to operate the helicopter.[25]

Heck, I would have built it for half of that price.

It's not very big. I'm surprised they could get enough lift from those blades, given the low surface pressure on Mars. It doesn't look like it can right itself if it tumbles. Lots of luck to you, Ingenuity. Send me some images.

 

[Lagnar]

China to land on Mars. Soon.

China Lands Mars Rover After "Nine Minutes Of Terror" | ZeroHedge

ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero

www.zerohedge.com

Cuz there's stuff there what we need here such as ...

"The US and China have taken an interest in Mars because it is packed with rare metals, including lithium, cobalt, nickel, copper, zinc, niobium, molybdenum, lanthanum, europium, tungsten, and gold, essential minerals that will power the economy of tomorrow."​

​

Good luck getting those millions of tons of unobtanium back to earth.

 

[Spiritb2f]

The more we explore off Planet the more others in outer reaches of the Galaxy are interested in us.