I never really understood why you'd have Perseverance drill the cores and then just leave them on the ground for an underdefined future mission to retrieve.
An all-in-one solution would be far too heavy. Splitting the tasks up makes a lot of sense. Having all the equipment onboard to drill cores, quickly analyze them, decide if they're worth keeping, and then putting samples in containers is enough work for one rover.
* Storing all the samples onboard means a larger and heavier rover
* Mass budget squeeze means no more helicopter
* The return requires a ground launch from mars, so no more SkyCrane delivery system
Whoa... TIL the rover had a tissue-box-sized helicopter (!!) on it! (and apparently the rotors must spin several times faster than a helicopter on earth due to Mars's sparse atmosphere). That's incredible.
I feel like SpaceX does an amazing job of producing docos and media (constant professionally-commentated live streams etc) but I never seem to see much from NASA. Sad, really.
There was extreme media coverage of the helicopter, live streams, twitter accounts, and scientists talking every day in media about if they could get another flight out of the copter. It was a huge media moment
The fascinating thing is that it wasn't a primary part of the mission but got lots of excitement. For me it was the thing that it features many off-the shelf parts from smartphones, uses linux and other open source software and it beat the expectations on how long it will service - Planned ~30 days with 5 flights and it did almost 3 years with 72 flights. <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/after-three-years-on-mars-nasas-ingenuity-helicopter-mission-ends/?utm_source=chatgpt.com" rel="nofollow">https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/after-three-years-on-mars-...
Imnimo · · focus · HN ↗
yabones · · focus · HN ↗
* Storing all the samples onboard means a larger and heavier rover
* Mass budget squeeze means no more helicopter
* The return requires a ground launch from mars, so no more SkyCrane delivery system
nomilk · · focus · HN ↗
I feel like SpaceX does an amazing job of producing docos and media (constant professionally-commentated live streams etc) but I never seem to see much from NASA. Sad, really.
hhh · · focus · HN ↗
jve · · focus · HN ↗
GJim · · focus · HN ↗
Wait until you find out that the helicopter carried a small piece of fabric from the wing of the 1903 Wright Flyer.
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_brothers#Wright_Brothers_Field" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_brothers#Wright_Brother...