Tag: Perseverance

String theory: NASA Mars rover discovers mystery object

Washington, United States | AFP Is it tumbleweed? A piece of fishing line? Spaghetti? A tangled object discovered by NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover has intrigued space watchers, leaving some musing tongue-in-cheek about the quality of Italian dining on the Red Planet. But the most plausible explanation is more prosaic: it’s likely remnants of a component used to lower the robotic explorer to the Martian surface in February 2021. “We have been discussing where it’s from, […]

After six months on Mars, NASA’s tiny copter is still flying high

  by Lucie AUBOURG Agence France Presse It was only supposed to fly five times. And yet NASA’s helicopter on Mars, Ingenuity, has completed 12 flights and it isn’t ready to retire. Given its stunning and unexpected success, the US space agency has extended Ingenuity’s mission indefinitely. The tiny helicopter has become the regular travel companion of the rover Perseverance, whose core mission is to seek signs of ancient life on Mars. “Everything is working […]

Mars rover Perseverance holds its first test drive on ‘Red Planet’

  WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — The Mars rover Perseverance has successfully conducted its first test drive on the Red Planet, the US space agency NASA said Friday. The six-wheeled rover travelled about 6.5 meters (21.3 feet) in 33 minutes on Thursday, NASA said. It drove four meters forward, turned in place 150 degrees to the left, and then backed up 2.5 meters, leaving tire tracks in the Martian dust. “This was our first chance […]

America has sent five rovers to Mars — when will humans follow?

by Issam Ahmed and Lucie Aubourg Agence France Presse With its impeccable landing on Thursday, NASA’s Perseverance became the fifth rover to reach Mars — so when can we finally expect the long-held goal of a crewed expedition to materialize? NASA’s current Artemis program is billed as a “Moon to Mars” mission, and acting administrator Steve Jurczyk has reiterated his aspiration of “the mid-to-end of the 2030s” for American boots on the Red Planet. But […]

NASA’s Perseverance rover beams back spectacular new images

  WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — NASA on Friday released stunning new photographs from Perseverance, including one of the rover being gently lowered to the surface of Mars by a set of cables, the first time such a view has been captured. The high-resolution still was extracted from a video taken by the descent stage of the spacecraft that had transported the rover from Earth. At that moment, the descent stage was using its six-engined […]

Touchdown: NASA’s Perseverance rover ready to search for life on Mars

  by Issam Ahmed and Lucie Aubourg Agence France Presse After seven months in space, NASA’s Perseverance rover survived a nail-biting landing phase to touch down gently on the surface of Mars on Thursday, ready to embark on its mission to search for the signs of ancient microbial life. “Touchdown confirmed,” said operations lead Swati Mohan at around 3:55 pm Eastern Time (2055 GMT), as mission control at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena erupted […]

Perseverance rover lands on Mars this week

  by Lucie AUBOURG Agence France Presse WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — After a seven-month journey, NASA’s Perseverance rover prepares to touch down on Mars on Thursday after first negotiating a risky landing procedure that will mark the start of its multi-year search for signs of ancient microbial life. The Mars 2020 mission, which set off late from Florida in late July, includes the largest ever vehicle to be dispatched to the Red Planet. Built […]

NASA wants to fly a helicopter on Mars for the first time

WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — More than a century after the first powered flight on Earth, NASA intends to prove it’s possible to replicate the feat on another world. Transported aboard the Mars 2020 spacecraft that arrives at the Red Planet on Thursday, the small Ingenuity helicopter will have several challenges to overcome — the biggest being the rarefied Martian atmosphere, which is just one percent the density of Earth’s. – Ultralight – It might […]

Glaciers could have sculpted Mars valleys: study

PARIS, France (AFP) — The question of whether ancient life could have existed on Mars centres on the water that once flowed there, but new research published Monday suggests that many of the Red Planet’s valleys were gouged by icy glaciers not rivers. The study in Nature Geoscience, which comes amid a flurry of new Mars missions trying to discover if the now-barren planet ever hosted life, casts doubt on a dominant theory that the planet […]

President Duterte urges “patience, perseverance, resilience” as he notes end of COVID-19 crisis “months and months away still”

(Eagle News)–President Rodrigo Duterte on Friday, May 22, said the end of the COVID-19 crisis appeared to be  “months and months away still.” The President made the statement during his  speech as keynote speaker of the graduating classes of the Philippine Military Academy and the Philippine National Police Academy via teleconferencing from Malacañang, as he urged Filipinos to exhibit certain traits for their sake. “Patience, perseverance and resiliency are the crying need of the moment,” […]

NASA names next Mars rover ‘Perseverance’

WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — NASA on Thursday announced the name of its next Mars rover: Perseverance. It will be the fifth exploratory vehicle on the Red Planet following in the tire tracks of the similarly augustly titled Sojourner, Spirit, Opportunity, and Curiosity. The name was announced at an event at Lake Braddock Secondary School in Burke, Virginia, to congratulate Alex Mather, the seventh-grade student who picked it. “Alex’s entry captured the spirit of exploration,” […]