Perseverance’s possible travel route on Mars
Click for full image.
In touting the plans of NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) to someday launch a rover to Jezero Crater designed to pick up the cached samples that Perseverance is going to leave behind, NASA today published the map to the right, showing Perseverance’s planned driving routes in the crater, on the large delta that poured into the crater in the past, and beyond that crater.
The yellow lines indicate Perseverance’s planned route, beginning somewhere in that red landing ellipse. The green lines indicated the many proposed landing sites and pathways the proposed follow-on sample retrieval mission can take to grab Perseverance samples.
The planned route looks like they will spend a lot of time exploring the top of delta, then will move out of the crater and to the southwest towards what had been another candidate landing site for Perseverance, now dubbed the Midway ellipse.
What route the science team will eventually take at the delta depends greatly on exactly where Perseverance lands today. We will know more in only a few hours.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
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Click for full image.
In touting the plans of NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) to someday launch a rover to Jezero Crater designed to pick up the cached samples that Perseverance is going to leave behind, NASA today published the map to the right, showing Perseverance’s planned driving routes in the crater, on the large delta that poured into the crater in the past, and beyond that crater.
The yellow lines indicate Perseverance’s planned route, beginning somewhere in that red landing ellipse. The green lines indicated the many proposed landing sites and pathways the proposed follow-on sample retrieval mission can take to grab Perseverance samples.
The planned route looks like they will spend a lot of time exploring the top of delta, then will move out of the crater and to the southwest towards what had been another candidate landing site for Perseverance, now dubbed the Midway ellipse.
What route the science team will eventually take at the delta depends greatly on exactly where Perseverance lands today. We will know more in only a few hours.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
Meanwhile here in Sweden…… This Englishman has been trying to explain to his workmates quite why tonight’s proceedings are perhaps the most audacious, and indeed the most scientifically important that mankind has ever attempted… Some got why I will have a small bottle of bubbly on hand, some did not get it at all…. I am as excited about the safe landing of this mission as pretty much anything other than my football teams cup final at Wembley stadium ( it’s football, not soccer!), And the birth of my children… ( Not in that order!!) What can I say… I GET the years of effort that so many people have dedicated to this mission, I GET the potentially paradigm changing results it could return, and I GET the massive danger of failure, and I GET the hopes and dreams of so many ( including myself ) that will die if the mission fails.
God speed Perseverance, and as an atheist, I can’t pray for success, but by God, I’m wishing for it!
I forgot to say…. There is currently only the US and NASA that could or would even attempt a mission such as this… for the scientifically literate, or even interested community world wide, NASA is a beacon for the US. Given the recent drama in US politics, I so hope for this missions success… It can only bring us all together, which.is something we badly need right now… As a distant European, I too love NASA!
Happy birthday bob
She’s down safely!
Bubbly is open and currently being consumed, even tho it’s a school night . And I’ve never been happier to do so….. NASA has many faults, but their unmanned exploration is truly “out of this world”…. Congratulations to NASA and the USA. As the late great Carl Sagan said “humanity is the way the universe knows itself” here’s to a new era of exploration of Mars!!!
Regarding the intended “cached samples” and their pickups.
I get first dibs on the logo for bumper sticker and tee shirt sales:
“Please – Cleanup after your Rover”.
Cant wait for Ingenuity to take off!! I know its solar powered. Will the revolving rotors spin off the Martian dust, or will it too
go the way of Oppy and possibly InSight (currently at 28% of Max.) ? What’s a safe flight radius from Perseverance? What’s its top speed?
Will it fly? What did it cost to make?