Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Perseverance rover’s descent and touchdown on Mars [video]

youtube.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 152 posts

Re: Perseverance rover’s descent and touchdown on Mars [video]

#61

Post by carabiner »

albertzeyer wrote: post #44
carabiner wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1996: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHhZQWAtWyQ

So far life on Mars was not really confirmed, right? I thought this is the main goal of this mission. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perseverance_(rover) > The rover's goals include looking for past Martian environments capable of supporting life, seeking out possible microbial life in those environments, ... Also see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_on_Mars > To date, no proof has been found of past or present lif…

Nope. Still remarkable that a president would comment officially on a NASA finding like that. It's the closest thing yet.

Re: Perseverance rover’s descent and touchdown on Mars [video]

#62

Post by jzer0cool »

Mars is dominated by linux machines, ai and machine learning. As I stared at the landing I thought what if it drops into the crater and cannot climb out? At the same time I was really hoping I would see also little antennas poking out from the ground underneath or little martians running around hiding from the new strange visitor. What's the first mission?

Re: Perseverance rover’s descent and touchdown on Mars [video]

#63

Post by 93po »

tppiotrowski wrote: post #57

Can someone comment on why this is the first time I'm seeing videos from Mars versus previous missions. Did the memory write speeds increase, more sensitive CCD sensors, easier to send data back to Earth? I'm sure there must be some technological reason this wasn't done before because it's simply stunning...

There's a ton of media from previous mars missions. Can't comment on why you didn't see them

Re: Perseverance rover’s descent and touchdown on Mars [video]

#64

Post by rx_tx »

nsriv wrote: post #36
rx_tx wrote: post #25

One of the engineers said that the parachute's patterns was both for visually determining the orientation (with computer vision), but also hinted there was some secret message in it. (at 19:34 in the livestream)

The rover wheels on Curiosity had gaps so that the tire tracks left a pattern in morse code that spelled out JPL, so maybe something similar? They eliminated that on Perseverance with the wheel redesign.

Yeah that's what I think, but it could also encode something longer. I am not sure on the parachute what is a science feature and what is an easter egg.

Re: Perseverance rover’s descent and touchdown on Mars [video]

#65

Post by tppiotrowski »

93po wrote: post #63
tppiotrowski wrote: post #57

Can someone comment on why this is the first time I'm seeing videos from Mars versus previous missions. Did the memory write speeds increase, more sensitive CCD sensors, easier to send data back to Earth? I'm sure there must be some technological reason this wasn't done before because it's simply stunning...

There's a ton of media from previous mars missions. Can't comment on why you didn't see them

I'm curious about videos specifically. I've seen a lot of high-res images and animated GIF style videos but nothing like this.

Re: Perseverance rover’s descent and touchdown on Mars [video]

#66

Post by wobblykiwi »

1-6 wrote: post #46

"ready to begin seeking the signs of past life." This is a brilliant engineering feat but I don't agree with the premise of that statement. This is NASA's own mission statement: "The goal of the Mars Exploration Program is to explore Mars and to provide a continuous flow of scientific information and discovery through a carefully selected series of robotic orbiters, landers and mobile laboratories interconnected by a…

What you're saying isn't quite true. Perseverance's mission IS to find signs of past life.

See: https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/mission/science/goals/

Re: Perseverance rover’s descent and touchdown on Mars [video]

#67

Post by LargoLasskhyfv »

XVII wrote: post #26
udev wrote: post #24

There is this emotion, not sure it has a name, which I am sure many engineers know -- when you prepare your system for a long time and then send it into the real world and watch it work... You can feel it in this video, e.g when you see the crane fly away after accomplishing the mission. If we don't have a name for this emotion yet, I hope the japanese or the germans invent one. :)

I'll just invent one: 'Funktionsfähigkeitsdemonstrationseuphorie'

Schöpferstolz. Schaffensfreude.

Re: Perseverance rover’s descent and touchdown on Mars [video]

#68

Post by 93po »

1-6 wrote: post #46

"ready to begin seeking the signs of past life." This is a brilliant engineering feat but I don't agree with the premise of that statement. This is NASA's own mission statement: "The goal of the Mars Exploration Program is to explore Mars and to provide a continuous flow of scientific information and discovery through a carefully selected series of robotic orbiters, landers and mobile laboratories interconnected by a…

The latter sounds like politically correct wordiness to not piss off the large amount of the planet that believes in intelligent design

Re: Perseverance rover’s descent and touchdown on Mars [video]

#70

Post by [deleted] »

jzer0cool wrote: post #62

Mars is dominated by linux machines, ai and machine learning. As I stared at the landing I thought what if it drops into the crater and cannot climb out? At the same time I was really hoping I would see also little antennas poking out from the ground underneath or little martians running around hiding from the new strange visitor. What's the first mission?

[deleted]
Post reply on HN